After Liberalism 1565843045

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Immanuel

S

F

Wallerstein

R I

S

M

I

S

N

AFTER LIBERALISM

OTHER BOOKS BY IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN Africa: The Politics of Independence (1961)

The Road

to

Independence:

Ghana and

the Ivory Coast (1964)

Africa: The Politics of Unity (1969)

University in Turmoil: The Politics of Change (1967) Africa: Tradition

The

Modem

and Change (1972; with Evelyn Jones Rich)

World System, 7(1974)

The Capitalist World-Economy (1979) The

Modem

World System, II (1980)

World-Systems Analysis (1982; with Terence K. Hopkins,

Dynamics of Global

Crisis (1982; with S.

Amin,

et al.)

et al.)

Historical Capitalism (1983)

The

Politics

of the World-Economy:

The States of the Movement and Africa

and

the

Modem

the Civilizations (1984)

World (1986)

The Modern World-System, III {19S9) Antisystemic Movements

(1989; with Giovanni Arrighi and Terence K. Hopkins)

Transforming the Revolution: Social Movements and the World-System (1990; with S. Amin, et

al.)

Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities

(1991; with Etienne Balibar) Geopolitics

and

the Geoculture:

Essays on the Changing World-System (1991)

Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth Century Paradigms (1991)

AFTER LIBERALISM

IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN

THE NEW PRESS. NEW YORK

©

1995 BY IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHER.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Wallerstein,

Immanuel Maurice, 1930-

After Liberalism p.

Immanuel

/

Wallerstein.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 1-56584-304-5 (pbk.) 1.

Liberalism. 4.

Human

JC574W35

1995

Post-communism.

2.

rights,

i.

3.

Economic development.

Title.

909.82'o— dc20

95-7424 cip

PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES BY THE NEW PRESS, NEW YORK DISTRIBUTED BY W. W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC., NEW YORK Established in 1990 as a major alternative to the large, commercial publishing houses. The New Press is the first full-scale

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BOOK DESIGN BY HALL SMYTH PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT BY KIM WAYMER PRINTED

IN

95

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

9^'

97 9« 9 « 7 6 5 4 3 2

TO CLEMENS HELLER WHO WORKED TO MAKE

INTELLIGENT DEBATE

ABOUT THE WORLD's FUTURE POSSIBLE

CONTENTS

acknowledgments

ix

introduction: after liberalism?

i.

the 1990s and after: can we reconstruct? The Cold War and

the

Third World: The Good Old Days?

Peace, StabiUty, and Legitimacy,

What Hope

II.

1

Africa?

What Hope

1990-2025/2050 the

World?

9 10

25

46

THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

71

Three Ideologies or One? The Pseudobatde of Modernity

72

Liberalism and the Legitimation of Nation- States:

An

Historical Interpretation

The Concept

93

of National Development, 1917-1989:

Elegy and Requiem

III.

108

THE HISTORICAL DILEMMAS OF LIBERALS

125

The End of What Modernity? The Insurmountable Contradictions

126

Human of the

of Liberahsm:

Rights and the Rights of Peoples in the Geoculture

Modem World-System

The Geoculture of Development, of Our Geoculture?

145 or the Transformation

162

America and the World: Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow

IV.

THE DEATH OF SOCIALISM, OR CAPITALISM

IN

MORTAL DANGER? 209

Revolution as Strategy and Tactics of Transformation

Marxism

After the Collapse of the

Communisms

The Collapse of Liberahsm The Agonies of Liberahsm: What Hope

NOTES

176

210 219

232 Progress?

252

272

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I

am

grateful to the original publishers for their kind cooperation in granting

permission for publication here.

"The Cold War and the Third World: The Good Old Days?": Economic and Political Weekly, April 27, 1991. "Peace, Stability, and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050": G. Lundestad, ed.,

The Fall of Great Powers (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1994).

"What Hope L.

Africa?

Wohlgemuth,

What Hope the World?": A. O. Olukoshi &: A Road to Development: Africa in the 21st Century

eds.,

(Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1995).

"Liberalism and the Legitimation of Nation- States: Interpretation": Social Justice, Vol. 19,

No.

1,

An

Historical

Spring 1992.

"The Concept of National Development, 1917-1989: Elegy and Requiem": American Behavioral

Scientist, Vol. 35^

No. 4/5, Mar./June 1992.

Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc.

"The End of What Modernity?": Theory and Society,

Vol. 24, 1995.

"The Insurmountable Contradictions of Liberalism: Human Rights and Rights of Peoples in the Geoculture of the Modern World-System": South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol.

9,

"The Geoculture of Development, Asian Perspective, Vol. 17, No.

No.

4,

the

FaU 1995.

or the Transformation of Our Geoculture?":

2, Fall- Winter

1993.

"America and the World: Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow": Theory and Society, Vol. 21,

1,

Feb. 1992.

"Revolution as Strategy and Tactics of Transformation": A. Callari

Marxism

in the Postmodern Age

(New York:

et al., eds.,

Guilford Press, 1994).

"Marxism After the Collapse of the Communisms": Economic Review, Economic and Political Weekly, Feb.-March 1992.

"The Collapse of Liberalism": R. Miliband and L. Socialist Register 1992 (London: Merlin Press,

"The Agonies of Liberalism: What Hope No. 204, Mar.-April 1994.

Panitch, eds..

1992).

Progress?":

Mw Left Review,

INTRODUCTION

AFTER LIBERALISM?

The

destruction of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dissolution

of the U.S.S.R. have been celebrated as the

and the

fall

of the

Communisms

the collapse of Marxism-Leninism as an ideological force in

modern world. This been celebrated

also

ideology. This

these

no doubt

is

These events have

correct.

triumph of liberalism as an

as the final

a total misperception of reality. Quite the contrary,

is

same events marked even more the collapse of liberalism and

our definitive entry into the world "after liberalism."

This book

is

devoted

to

expounding

this thesis. It is

of essays written between 1990 and 1993.

The

in a period of great ideological confusion, during

spread, early, naive optimism began to give fear

and dismay

at the

The year 1989 1945-1989,

that

it

which

a wide-

to extensive, diffuse

emerging world disorder.

has been widely analyzed as the end of the period is,

as the year signifying the defeat of the U.S.S.R.

in the cold war. In this to regard

way

composed

essays were written

as the

book

it

will

be argued that

end of the period 1789-1989,

of the triumph and collapse, the alism as the global ideology

rise

— what

it is

that

more

is,

usefiil

the period

and eventual demise, of liberI call

the geoculture

— of the

modern world-system. The year 1989 would thus mark the end of a politico-cultural era— an era of spectacular technological achievement—in which the slogans of the French Revolution were seen by most people

to reflect inevitable historical truth, to

be reahzed

now

or in a near future.

Liberalism was never a doctrine of the Left; tessential centrist doctrine. Its advocates

ation, their

wisdom, and

their humanity.

it

was always the quin-

were sure of their moder-

They

arrayed themselves

simultaneously against an archaic past of unjustified privilege (which

they considered to be represented by conservative ideology) and a reckless leveling that took no account of either virtue or merit (which

INTRODUCTION they considered to be represented by socialist/radical ideology). Liberals have always sought to define the rest of the poHtical scene

They claimed

as

made up of two extremes between which

to

be equally against reactionaries and against repubUcans (or dem-

ocrats) in

1815-1848; against

they

fall.

and against Communists

Fascists

1919-1939; against imperialists and against radical 1945-1960; against

racists

and against reverse

in

nationalists in

racists in the 1980s.

Liberals have always claimed that the liberal state— reformist,

and somewhat

legalist,

freedom that

it

libertarian

And

guarantee freedom.

— was the only state that could

for the relatively small

safeguarded, this was perhaps true. But unfortunately

group always remained

a minority perpetually

becoming everyone. Liberals have always claimed state

group whose en route to

that only a hberal

could guarantee a nonrepressive order. Critics on the right have

said that the liberal state, in

its

reluctance to appear repressive,

permitted, indeed encouraged, disorder. Critics on the

other hand, have always said that

it

was order

that

left,

was

on

the

in fact the

primary concern of Hberals in power and that they engaged in very real repression,

The

point

is

which was only

partially

hidden.

not once again to argue the merits or faults of Uber-

alism as the basis of the

good

society.

We

need rather

doing the historical sociology of liberalism. clearly

its

Revolution; first

emergence

historical its

in only a

need

to analyze

French

meteoric rise to triumph as the dominant ideology,

few

states (albeit the

most powerful ones), then its

in the

equally sudden dethrone-

in recent years.

The

origins of liberalism in the political upheavals that were

launched by the French Revolution are widely argued ture.

engage in

in the aftermath of the

world-system as a world-system; and

ment

We

to

The

assertion that hberalism

geoculture of the world-system

While most analysts would agree

Europe whereas

as of 1914, I

is

became somewhat more

that liberalism

some would argue

argue that

its

apogee was

in the litera-

the central credo of the

that

in the

its

controversial.

was triumphant

in

decline began then,

post-1945 period (up

to

hegemony in the world-system. Furthermore, view of how liberalism triumphed— its essential links with racism my and Fluroccntrism would be disj)utcd by many. 1968), the era of U.S.

NTRODUCTION I

expect however that what

the collapse of the

is

Communisms

most provocative

liberalism as an ideology but the decisive ability

of Hberal ideology to continue

a version of this thesis

is

to

argue that

represents not the final success of

undermining of the

historic role.

its

To be

sure,

being argued by the troglodytes of the

is

world Right. But many of them are either cynics manipulating slogans or hopeless romantics of a family-centered Utopia that never

Many

existed historically.

others are merely frightened by the

impending disintegration of world order, which they correcdy perceive to be occurring.

This rejection of liberal reformism

is

being implemented

it is

being simultaneously force-fed to countries

now in

With America,

the United States under the label of the Contract

all

as

over the world

by the ministrations of the IMF. These overdy reactionary poUcies will

probably stimulate a

political

backlash in the United States, as

has been happening already in Eastern Europe, because these policies

worsen rather than improve the immediate economic

situation

of the majority of the population. But this backlash will not return to a belief in liberal reformism.

It will

mean

a

merely mean that a

doctrine that combines a fake adulation of the market with legisla-

poor and the strangers, which

tion against the

is

what

peddled today by reinvigorated reactionaries, cannot

is

being

offer a viable

substitute for the failed promises of reformism. In any case,

argument

is

not

theirs.

Mine

one of the essays the

I call

in

need

to take a sober

look

my

who uphold what "modernity of liberation." I think we

is

the view of those

at the history

of liberalism in order to see

what we can salvage from the wreckage, and to see how we can struggle under the difficult conditions, and with the ambiguous legacy, that liberalism has I

am

bequeathed

not seeking to paint

preaching rosy bromides. is

I

doom and

other of the past

five

hundred

about.

They

I

years.

that "everything

change," and are working

gloom. But neither

am

I

fiitility

more consequential than any I

see forces of privilege

must change

skillfully

see forces of liberation

see the historical

world.

believe that the period after liberalism

a period of major political struggle

know very well

to the

who

and

who

in order that nothing

intelligently to bring that

have

literally lost their breath.

of a political project in which they

INTRODUCTION have invested 150 years of struggle— the project of social transformation via the obtaining of state power, state by

whether an alternative project

are very unsure

state.

And

they

exists or not.

But

the erstwhile project, the strategy of the world Left, failed pri-

marily because

was infused, suffused, with

it

most purportedly

liberal ideology,

even

antiliberal, "revolutionary" variants,

such

in

its

as

Leninism. Until there

1

is

clarity

about what happened between

789 and 1 989, no plausible project for liberation can present itself

in the twenty-first century.

But even

if

we

and 1989, and even twenty-five to

tegration,

what happened between 1789

are clear about if

we

agree that the transition of the next

years will be a time of systemic disorder, disin-

fifty

and acute

political struggle

about what kind of new

we shall construct, the question concerning most What to do now? People are confused, angry, fearful, now —sometimes even desperate, but not at all passive. The sense that

world-system(s)

people

is.

one should act

politically is

still

strong everywhere in the world

despite the equally strong feeling that political activity of a "traditional" type

The tion."

is

probably

futile.

choice can no longer be presented as "reform vs. revolu-

We

have debated that supposed alternative for more than a

century only to discover that, in most cases, the reformers were

at

best reluctant reformers, the revolutionaries were only slightly

more

militant reformers,

and the reforms

that were

implemented

achieved on the whole less than their proponents intended and less

than their opponents feared. This was in fact the necessary

result of the structural constraints

imposed upon us by the domi-

nant liberal consensus. If,

for

however, disintegration

whatever

be?

I

is

how

to

On

the

more apt name than revolution shall

our

and the two need

to

political stance

be done simul-

one hand, almost everyone's immediate concern

cope with the pressing, ongoing problems of life

material problems, the social spiritual

a

be happening now, what

see only two things to do,

taneously. is

will

problems.

and

— the

cultural problems, the moral or

On the other hand, fewer people, but still many,

are preoccupied with a longer-run concern

— the strategy of trans-

formation. Neither the reformers nor the revolutionaries succeeded

INTRODUCTION in the past century

because neither recognized the degree to which

the short-run concern

and the long-run concern required simul-

taneous action, but of quite diverse (even divergent) kinds.

The modern ment

state

for helping

has been par excellence the reformer's instru-

people cope. This has not

function of the state, nor even perhaps

at all

been the only

principal function.

its

Nor

has state-oriented action been the only coping mechanism. But the fact is that state action

has been an ineluctable element in the

process of coping, and that attempts by ordinary people to cope

have been justifiably and intelligently directed toward getting the states to act in particular

ways. Despite the disorder, disarray, and

ongoing disintegration, this continues

to

be

true. States

can increase

or diminish suffering, through their allocation of resources, their

degree of protection of rights, and their interventions in social tions

between

different groups.

To

suggest that anyone should no

longer bother about what their state does believe

rela-

is folly,

many people are going to be willing to

and

I

do not

turn away completely

from an active concern with the actions of their

state.

make things a little better (or a little worse) for They can choose between helping ordinary people cope

States can

everyone. better

and allowing upper

ever, all that states

strata to thrive

still

more. This

is,

how-

can do. These things no doubt matter a lot in the

short run, but they matter not at to affect in significant

all

in the longer run. If we

wish

ways the massive transition of the whole we are living so that it goes in one

world-system through which

direction rather than in another, the state action. Indeed,

The

it is

is

rather a major obstacle.

sense that the state structures have

major obstacles

not a major vehicle of

become (were always?)

to the transformation of the

world-system, even

when (or maybe especially when) they were controlled by reformist forces (claiming to be "revolutionary" forces), the massive turn against the state in the

is

what

Third World,

while socialist countries, and even in the

OECD

is

"welfare state"

countries. In the wreckage, the slogans of the "market,"

by

a

behind

in the erst-

peddled

newly aggressive array of (Western) conservative experts and

political figures,

have become a momentary verbal currency. Since,

however, the state policies associated with the "market" as slogan

INTRODUCTION make coping more

than less

difficult rather

swing back

difficult, the

begun in many however, toward a renewed be-

against market-priority governments has already countries. lief in

that

The swing back

the capacity of the state to transform the world. is

it

judgment

To

the extent

occurring, the swing back merely reflects the sober that

in coping. It to

not,

is

is

both turn

we

stiU

need

use the state in order to aid people

to

therefore not inconsistent for the

to the state (for aid in coping)

and policies

in general as useless

same people today

and denounce the

and even nefarious

(in

state

terms

of restructuring the world in the direction they would hope

it

could go).

What will, what

can, such people do, then, that might

affisct

the

direction of the transition? Another deceptive slogan enters here: it is

and reconstruct the

the call to build, expand,

This

is

exist

and

equally vain. are strong

"civil society,"

which

The

"civil society"

enough

"civil society."

can exist insofar as

states

to

undergird something called the

essentially

means the organization of citizens

within the framework of the state to pursue activities legitimated

by the

and

state

to

vis-a-vis the state.

engage in indirect (that

The development

is,

of the

nonparty) politics

civil

society was an

essential instrument in the erection of liberal states, pillars of internal

and world-systemic

symbol

as a rallying

where they did not yet torically

was

a

mode

order.

The

civil

society

was

also

used

for the installation of liberal state structures exist.

But most of all, the

civil

society his-

of constraining potential destructive violence

of and by the state as well as of taming the dangerous classes.

Constructing the

civil

society was the activity of states in Western

Europe and North America state-building remained

in the nineteenth century. Insofar as

on the world-systemic agenda

two-thirds of the twentieth century, one could structing civil societies in civil

society

is

more

states.

still

But with the

necessarily disintegrating. Indeed,

in the first

talk of

con-

states in decline,

it is

precisely this

disintegration that contemporary liberals are deploring and that conservatives are secretly cheering.

We are living in die era of "groupism"— the construcdon of defensive groups,

solidarity

each of which asserts an identity around which

and struggles

to survive

it

builds

alongside and against other such

NTRODUCTION groups.

The

problem

political

such groups

for

to

is

keep from

becoming simply one more agency of helping people cope (which is

politically

ambiguous, since

it

preserves order by

lacunae that are being created by the collapse of the they can truly

filling in

states),

become an agency of transformation. But must be clear about their

cies of transformation, they

objectives. Fighting for the rights of the

the struggle for equality

is

become

for

at the local

and

at the

at the level

tives for the

one instance of

move

head of the

to the

most groups an implausible

During the present world

work

as

be agen-

egalitarian

quite different fi"om fighting for the rights

of the group to "catch up" and has in any case

group

to

the

so that

world

transition,

it is

effective to

but

it is

now

level,

of the national

line

(which

objective).

work both

of limited use to

of use to pursue objec-

state. It is

very short run or for the long run, but the middle

run has become ineffective because the middle run supposes an ongoing, well-functioning historical system. a strategy

is

It is

because such

not simple to implement since the tactics of such a

strategy are so necessarily

ad hoc and contingent, that the period

ahead seems so confused.

If,

in a

world where

existing historical system level of personal

however,

is

we

accept that

we now

live

no longer hold sway and where the

liberal values

incapable of ensuring that minimal

and material security

that

is

its own we can move

required for

acceptability (not to speak of its legitimation), then

ahead clearly with a reasonable degree of hope and confidence, but of course without any guarantees.

The day of the arrogantly self-assured liberal ideologue is behind us. The conservatives have reemerged, after a self-abasement of 150 years, pieties

to

put forth uncaring self-interestedness, masked by

and mysticism,

as

an ideological substitute.

wash. Conservatives tend to be smug

It

doesn't really

when dominant and deeply

when exposed or even merely seriously threatened. It is for all those who have been left out in the present worldsystem to push ahead on all fronts. They no longer have the easy objective of taking state power as a focus. They are required to do something far more complicated: to ensure the creation of a new angry and vengeful

historical

and very

system by acting

at

one and the same time very

globally. It is difficult,

but

it is

not impossible.

locally

PARTI

THE

199flS

AND AFTER:

CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

CHAPTER ONE

THE COLD WAR AND THE THIRD WORLD: THE GOOD OLD DAYS?

we be

Shall

nostalgic so soon?

fear

I

we must. We have come

out

of the era of U.S. hegemony in the world-system (1945-1990) and into a

posthegemonic

erstwhile Third difficult times.

World

The

era.

However

difficult the position

in that era was,

I

time just past was a

it is

of hopes oft deceived, but of hopes nonetheless.

forward

is

to

of the

more time of hopes, no doubt

believe

in for far

The

time just

be a time of troubles, and of struggles born more of

To use

desperation than of confidence.

old Western symbolism,

which may under the circumstances be inappropriate:

it

will

be a

time of purgatory, the outcome always uncertain. I

shall outline

out of which

we may

views in two parts: a brief sketch of the era a projection of what

it is I

think

argument

as to the historical

believe the essential features of the period

1945-1990 may be

anticipate, along with an

alternatives

I

my

we have come; and

we

face.

summed up in four statements. 1. The United States was the hegemonic power

in a unipolar

Its power, based on an overwhelming edge in economic productivity as of 1945 and an alliance system with

world-system.

Western Europe and Japan, reached 2.

The United

States

its

apogee circa 1967-73.

and the U.S.S.R. engaged

in a highly struc-

tured, carefully contained, formal (but not substantive) conflict, in

which the U.S.S.R. acted

as a subimperialist agent of the

United States. 3.

The Third World

forced itself upon the unwiUing attention of

the United States, the U.S.S.R.,

demanding die

rights

more

fully

and

and Western Europe by

earlier than the countries of

Nordi anticipated or desired. Both

10

its

political strength

and

its

ultimate weakness

was

its

belief in,

twin objectives of self-determination 4.

The 1970s and 1980s were

and optimism about, the

and national development.

and disillusionment

in the

economic

a period of global

nation, resistance by the United States to

its

stag-

impending decline,

Third World with

its

own

strategy.

me elaborate on each of these statements. 1. The overwhelming economic advantage of the United States 1945— in production and productivity— was the consequence of

Let

in

three conjoined factors: the steady concentration of the national

energy of the United States since 1865 on improving for

its

capacity

both production and technological innovation; the freedom of

the United States from serious military expenditures, at least until

1941, efficacious wartime mobilization from 1941 to 1945, and the absence of wartime destruction of its infrastructure; the enor-

mous

destruction of infrastructure and

human lives

over the whole

of Eurasia from 1939 to 1945.

The United

States

advantage, that

United States

is,

was able quite rapidly

create a

hegemony

to control or

sions in the world political

dominate

that

to institutionalize this

made

it

possible for the

virtually all significant deci-

and economic arenas

for

some twenty-

hegemony was ideological and even cultural as well. The two key pillars on which this hegemony was consolidated

five years. Its

were a system of alliances with the important, already industrial-

on the one hand, and a nationally home, on the other. In each case, arrangement was economic and ideological, and nominally

ized countries of the world integrating welfare state at the

political.

The economic

Europe and Japan was economic reconstruction, accompanied by a significant rise in real income of the middle strata and the skilled working classes in the United States. This guaranteed both political satisfaction and a significant

The

carrot for Western

market for United States productive enterprises.

ideological package

fully for the first

was the commitment

to

implementing

time the two-century-old promises of political

liberalism: universal suffrage

and

a functioning parliamentary

system. This was done within the framework of a struggle with

11

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

12

Communist "totalitarianism," and meant therefore a de facto exclusion of Communists from political rights.

The nominal

political

promise was participation of Western

Europe and Japan as countries, and of the working classes as strata, making. In reality, for some twenty-five years

in collective decision

major

all

political decisions in the

world-system were made by a

small elite in the United States. This was called United States leadership. Western

Europe and Japan were

client states.

The

working-class movements were for the most part client movements. 2.

The

similarly

relationship of the United States

and the U.S.S.R. was

one thing on the surface with another

reality

underneath.

On the surface, the United States and the U.S.S.R. were ideological enemies, locked in a cold war not merely since 1945 but since

1917.

They represented

alternative visions of the social good,

based on quite divergent readings of historical tures of the

reality.

The

struc-

two countries were quite disparate, and in some aspects

fundamentally different. Furthermore, they both proclaimed quite

loudly the depth of this ideological cleavage and called on nations and groups to opt for one side or the other. the

Remember

famous declaration of John Foster Dulles: "Neutralism

immoral." Equivalent statements were

Nonetheless the

Europe, more or

reality

less

was quite

made by

different.

all

is

Soviet leaders.

A line was drawn in

where Soviet and U.S. troops met

at the

end

of the Second World War. East of this line was a zone reserved for Soviet political dominance. States

and the U.S.S.R.

U.S.S.R. could do as is,

it

is

its east European zone (that There were two working conditions.

wished within

create satellite regimes).

First, the

The arrangement between the United well known and quite simple. The

two zones would observe absolute interstate peace

Europe and would abstain from any attempt

to

change or subvert

the governments in the other zone. Secondly, the U.S.S.R.

neither expect nor obtain aid from the United States in

reconstruction.

The

U.S.S.R. might take what

it

in

its

would

economic

could from Eastern

Europe, while the U.S. government concentrated

its

financial

resources (vast but not unlimited) on Western Europe and Japan. Tliis arrangement, as

we know, worked marvelously well. Peace in a threat of Communist in-

Europe was absohite. There was never

The Cold War and

surrecdon

in

the

Third World: The Good Old Days?

Western Europe (except

13

Greece, where the

in

U.S.S.R. undermined and abandoned the Greek Communists).

And the United States never gave any support to the multiple efforts of Eastern European states to loosen or end Soviet control (1953,

1956, 1968, 1980-81). The Marshall Plan was reserved for Western

Europe, and the U.S.S.R. constructed a cocoon called Comecon.

The

U.S.S.R.

may be considered

United States because ity

within

its

it

a subimperialist

power of the

functioned to guarantee order and

stabil-

enhanced the

ability

zone on conditions that in

of the United States to maintain

its

fact

worldwide hegemony. The very

ferocity of the ultimately not very meaningful ideological struggle

was

a great political plus for the

United States

We

sure, for the leadership of the U.S.S.R.).

(as

it

was, to be

shall see that the

U.S.S.R. served as an ideological shield for the United States in the Third 3.

World

as well.

The Third World was

whether

it

liked or

never asked, either in 1945 or since,

approved the world order established by the

United States in collusion with the U.S.S.R. accorded a very desirable position in

this

It

was

certainly not

world order. In 1945,

it

was offered very little in the political arena, and even less in the eco-

nomic

arena.

As

the years

went

by, the offers

improved somewhat,

but always grudgingly and only because of Third World militance

and rambunctiousness. In 1945, no one took the Third World seriously as a political actor

on the world scene

— neither

the United States nor the

U.S.S.R. nor the old colonial powers of Western Europe.

Any

complaints were received with surprise, and the complainers were

counseled patience, on the basis of a world-level version of the

down" hypothesis. To be sure, the United

"trickle

States

had

a

program

It had been proclaimed by Woodrow Wilson in was called the self-determination of nations. Eventually,

World. it

Third 1917, and

for the

fullness of time, each

people was to receive

its

in the

collective political

rights to sovereignty, analogous to each citizen's receiving his indi-

vidual political rights to suffrage.

These

political rights

would

then afford the opportunity for self-improvement, something that after

1945 acquired the name of national development.

THE 1990s AND after: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

1^

Leninism

as

an ideology was presumably the antinomy of

was its avatar. The Wilsonian program for the Third World was translated by Lenin into Marxist jargon; it emerged as anti-imperialism and the construction of socialism. This obviously reflected real differences Wilsonianism. In fact, in

many ways

about who would control the

political processes in the

the world-system, but the actual

it

program had the

periphery of

identical form:

change that would establish sovereignty

first

a political

first

time ever in colonies, for the

pendent Third World

states);

first

(for the

time really in already inde-

then an economic change involving

establishment of an efficacious state bureaucracy, the improve-

ment of productive processes

and the

cre-

ation of a social infrastructure (particularly in education

and

("industrialization"),

The outcome, promised by both

the Wilsonians and the was "catching up," closing the gap between the rich countries and the poor. The Third World countries bought this Wilsonian-Leninist package. But they were understandably impatient. Since the health).

Leninists,

package involved two steps, they quite reasonably took the first.

This was the path of anticolonial struggle

first

step

in the colonies,

what were once called quite aptly the semicolonies. After 1945, the Third World forced the pace, everywhere. The Chinese Communists marched into

and of analogous

political revolutions in

Shanghai. The peoples of Indochina and Indonesia refused to welcome back their colonial overlords. The Indian subcontinent said independence immediately. The Egyptians ousted the monarchy and nationalized the Suez Canal. The Algerians reftised to

accept the idea that they were part of France. There was a

"downward sweep" of African Political revolution

liberation starting in the 1950s.

was on the march

in Latin

America, most

Movement in was the Bandung

notably advanced by the triumph of the 26th of July

Cuba

in

1958. And, of course, in 1955 there

Conference.

The is

that

essential it

element

to

observe about this whole political push

was, from the outset, totally indigenous in origin and in

opposition to the North.

The

colonial powers were strongly

op|)oscd to this forcing of the pace and did

all

they could to stop

The Cold War and

it

or slow

it

the

Third World: The Good Old Days?

down. Of course, they varied

13

in their tactics, the British

being notably more flexible than the others, and the Portuguese

dragging up the

The United

rear.

Wilsonian anticolonialism, tended

down as long as to

could, but

it

"moderate" leaders

at a

it

States, despite to

support

this

theoretical

its

European slow-

eventually called for decolonization

moderate pace. Nor was the attitude of

the U.S.S.R. very different.

Leninism presumably represented

a

more strenuous and combative form of anticolonialism than Wilsonianism did.

And

of course the U.S.S.R. did give material

many

and

political

very

many crucial movements, it too sought to constrain or restrain and its counsel to Mao Zedong are

support

to

anti-imperialist

movements. But,

at

the pace. Its role in Greece

notorious. But around the world, anyone local struggles

knows

that Soviet support

and often was obtained only with

Union refused Still,

won by

to

extend

of course, as

who has followed closely

it

we

the Third World.

was never

in the lead

difficulty; frequently the Soviet

at all.

also

By

know, the basic

political battle

was

the late 1960s, decolonization (or

its

equivalent in already independent states) had been achieved almost

was time

everywhere.

It

for the

second step, national develop-

ment. In

however, just as the

moment had come for the second The

fact,

step, the

world-system entered into a Kondratieff B-phase.

second step was never 4.

By 1970,

limits of its

to

be achieved in most places.

the United States

power.

Its

had reached the apogee and the

declining gold reserves forced

it

off the fixed

The economic growth of Western Europe and that they now matched and were beginning to outstrip U.S. levels of productivity, at the very moment that the Kondratieff B-phase set in. Or rather, the global expansion of

gold-dollar parity.

Japan had been such

production was

itself the

major source of the downturn.Vietnam

was demonstrating not only to its

that the

United States had

own Wilsonian credo even when

it

to

accede

didn't approve of the

group making the demands but also that the cost of not doing so

was weakening the legitimacy of the U.S. government at home. And the world revolution of 1968 undermined the entire ideological

even

consensus that the United States had constructed, including

its

reserve card, the Soviet shield.

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

l6

The two decades

since have been United States patchwork.

Each patch has been efficacious in that

it

slowed

down

the fraying,

but eventually the whole framework would look tattered. Nixon went to China, a brilliant stroke, pulling the Chinese back into the world order arrangement. He cut U.S. losses by accepting defeat in Vietnam.

And

another brilliant stroke, the United

in

States connived in (perhaps even arranged) the rise in prices.

OPEC oil OPEC

Paraded as evidence of Third World militance, the

initiative

served to funnel

surely any that the

much of the available world surplus

Third World had)

into

Western

(and

(largely U.S.)

(who no doubt took their rent cut). The money was then sent right back to the Third World (and the Soviet-bloc states) in the form of loans to states, which enabled

banks via the oil-producing

states

these states momentarily to balance their budgets and continue

importing Western manufactures.

The

bill

would come due

in

the 1980s.

The United calm.

ism

It

States sought during the

offered the Western

— that

is,

a

1970s

to

keep everyone

Europeans and the Japanese

promise of more consultation

in

trilateral-

world policy-

Union detente— that is, a lowering of as balm for the Brezhnevian bureaucracy in the wake of the shock wave of 1968. It offered the U.S. public a relaxation of cold war tensions as well, a kind of cultural consumerism that included more liberal mores and affirmative action. And, to the Third World, it offered the post- Vietnam syndrome, which concretely meant such gestures as the Church Committee's report on the CIA, the Clark Amendment on Angola, and the withdrawal of support to Somoza and the Shah. I believe we should see the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations as following a single policy, which we can term the "low posture," and which President Carter spelled out in his famous address to the U.S. public on accepting the limitations of U.S. power. These policies seemed to be working reasonably well until, once again, the Third World pulled the plug. The "low posture" foundered on the unexpected rock of the AyatoUah Khomeini. He was not to be fooled. Low posture or not, the United States was still the number one Satan (and the U.S.S.R. number two).

making.

It

offered the Soviet

the ideological decibels,

which served

The Cold War and

the

Third World: The Good Old Days?

Khomeini's strategy was quite simple. rules of the

game— both

He

ly

refused to accept the

the rules of the U.S. post-1945 world

order and the rules of the interstate system, which had been in place for

five centuries.

The

net result was equally simple.

The

United States was profoundly humiliated, Carter was ousted, and

Reagan came

to

power on

"low posture"

a platform of rejecting the

way possible. The Reagan(-Bush) strategy was to substimachismo for the low posture— tough with allies, tough with the Soviet Union, tough at home, and of course tough with in every

tute fake

the

Third World.

Economically, the world had to face the of the 1970s

— the debt crisis,

first

bill for

the patchwork

manifested in Poland in 1980

recognized in Mexico in 1982.

The

was a downward economic spiral throughout the Third World and the Soviet-bloc countries, with the exception of the East Asian NICs, which managed to corner the industries devolving from core to and

officially

result

semiperiphery because of their lower rate of profitability. that

OPEC pump

exhausted

its

possibilities,

Reagan

relied

nesianism and massive borrowing from

economic

rivals

Now

priming of the sagging world-economy had

its

on U.S. military Keyformer

—

Japan and Western Europe.

It

allies,

now

its

was clear by had the Third

this bill would soon come due, as World loans of the 1970s. Were there any patches left? The first to decide that there probably weren't was Mr. Gorbachev. The U.S.S.R. was a superpower

mid-decade that

primarily because of its special arrangement with the United States,

which was

called the cold war. If the United States could

no longer

play the role of hegemonic power, the cold war served no function,

and the U.S.S.R. risked being treated

as just

one more semi-

peripheral state in the capitalist world-economy. Gorbachev sought to save the possibiHty of Russia/the U.S.S.R.'s

power

(at the

very

least, a

remaining a world

strong semiperipheral state) by a three-

fold program: unilateral liquidation of the cold

war (highly now irrelevant and

successful); unburdening the U.S.S.R. of its burdensome quasi empire in Eastern Europe (highly successfiil); and restructuring the Soviet state so that it could function efficaciously in the

posthegemonic era (not

successfiil).

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

l8

The United

was

States

at first

stunned by

maneuver, and

this

then decided to try to cover up this conscious dismantlement of the U.S. world order

by crying

victory.

This

last bit

puff might have carried the United States for

five

of advertising

more

years

had

not the Third World once again pulled the plug, this time in the

person of Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein saw the weakness of the United States, particularly as manifested in the collapse of

Communist regimes in the Soviet bloc and in its inability to impose on Israel the process of regional settlements (in Indochina, southern Africa, Central America, and the Middle East) that are part of the liquidation of the cold war. that this

was the moment

for boldness.

was quite possibly preparing I

Saddam Hussein decided

to

proceed

He

invaded Kuwait and

fiarther south.

believe four variables entered into his calculation.

the world debt crisis;

Suddam Hussein knew

serious relief for the Third

had

a solution at

hand— seize

second variable was

Had

World from

Israel's

Once

still

would be no

the debt crisis.

He

at least

The PLO.

the Kuwaiti accumulated rent.

ending the peace

talks

with the

would have hurt

the talks been ongoing, an invasion

Palestinian cause,

there

One was

the

the focal issue of Arab popular sentiment.

the talks were dead, Hussein

would appear

as the last

hope

of the Palestinians and harness Arab popular sentiment, as he

seems

to

The had

a

have done. But these two variables were ultimately minor.

collapse of the

Communisms was

double meaning from

a

far more important. This Third World perspective. First, U.S.S.R. would not support him,

Saddam Hussein knew that the liberated him from the automatic

which

States-Soviet settlement of escalation. final

And

all

constraints of the United

disputes that threatened nuclear

second, the collapse of the

Communisms was

the

collapse of the ideology of national development. If even

make

model at its disposal, surely neither Iraq nor any other Third World state was likely to catch up by a program of collective self-help within the the U.S.S.R. couldn't

it,

with the

full

Leninist

framework of the existing world-system. The Wilsonians had at last the

Leninist shield, which had channeled Third World

irn|)aticncc into a strategy that was,

dominant

lost

from the point of view of the

forces in the world-system, die strategy least threatening

The Cold War and

19

system the Third World would undertake.

to the

Disabused of all

alternatives,

Saddam Hussein took

ness,

The Good Old Days?

the Third World:

invaded, he had a

and certain of United States weak-

into account the fourth variable. If he

chance of succeeding. But the United

fifty-fifty

a one hundred percent chance of losing. The United would find itself without viable options. If it acceded, it became a paper tiger. And if it resisted, the political fallout of the carnage had to be negative for the U.S. position— in the Middle East, in Europe, at home, and ultimately everywhere.

had

States

States

II

Where

are

we heading now? Since

I

believe the world-system

is

moving into an even greater North-South polarization than heretofore,

the

will first present

I

North and

what

its

I

believe will be the restructuring of

consequences for the South, and then present

believe will be the political options of the South. Finally,

I

shall try to

put

I

this in the context of the future of the capitalist

world-economy

We

what

as such.

end of a Kondratieff B-phase that has been going on since 1967-73. We are entering the final and probably most dramatic dip down. It is analogous to the 1893-96 are presently at the

tail

dip in the Kondratieff B-phase that ran from 1873 to 1896.

impact

will vary

on

different parts of the North, but

it

will

Its

prob-

ably be very great for most parts of the South. However, the world-

economy, once thoroughly shaken down, wdll come out of it, and we shall

be in for another big A-phase.

has long been predicted, by a

It

will

new product

be fueled cycle of

initially, as

new

leading

industries (microchips, biogenetics, etc.); the three strong loci of

such production will be Japan, the EEC, and the United States.

They

will

be in sharp competition to gain the quasi-monopolistic

control of the world market for their particular technical version

of these products, and they can't

There

is

much

world market.

I

talk these

don't believe

way

all

get

it.

days of a three-way breakdown of the it,

because, in this kind of acute com-

The

stakes are high,

and

the weakest of the three competitors will seek an alliance with

one

petition, triads give

to a binary split.

of the other two for fear of being squeezed out altogether. Today,

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

20 and surely

a

decade from now, the weakest of the three,

efficiency of production

and national

financial stability,

in terms of is

and

will

The natural alliance is with Japan. The tradeoff is obvious. Japan is now strong in production processes and in capital surplus. The United States is strong in research and develbe the United States.

opment capacity and tary power,

potential, the service sector generally, mili-

and accumulated wealth

for

consumption.

A

Korea could join the Japan-United States arrangement,

reunited as

would

Canada. Japan and the United States would bring into the arrange-

ment their links in Latin America and Southeast Asia. And they would make a strong bid to find the appropriate niche for China. Europe has seen this coming for a long time. That is why the 1992 arrangements have not only never been derailed but also are surely going to be augmented, now that Germany is reunited and Thatcher has been disposed of. Europe has to work out its detailed strategy; either piecemeal

confederation.

Europe

is

to

The key

expansion of the

is

EC

or wide-ranging

Russia, which must be included

if

have any strength vis-a-vis a Japan-United States

arrangement. Europe will work hard to counter a disintegration of the U.S.S.R., and since Japan, China, and the United States for

other reasons are also fearful of the same process, the U.S.S.R. will

probably weather the storm somehow.

The second their

stage will be for each of the

main semiperiphery (China

so that

it

two Norths

to

develop

for the one, Russia for the other)

can be an adjunct producer, a major market, and a sup-

plier of migrant labor.

At the moment, the core zones are

terrified

of the prospects of Russian and Chinese outflow. But in 2005,

with booming economies and continued demographic decline, Gastarheitern will seem highly desirable, provided

it

is

an

"orderly" process.

What will happen to the erstwhile Third World? Little that is Of course, there will be many enclaves linked to one of the

good.

two Norths, but the overall share of the South tion

and world wealth

actual reversal

on the

and health), the one

will

go down, and

I

in

believe

world produc-

we

social indicator curves (that

set of curves

is,

will see

an

education

on which the South has been

doing reasonably well during the 1945-90 period. Furthermore,

The Cold War and

the

Third World: The Good Old Days?

the South will have been deprived of

its

ment of the 1945-90 period — the national

major

21

political instru-

liberation

movements.

The ANC in South Africa will be the last great movement to have come to power. These movements have all served one historical purpose

— to achieve self-determination — and they have

all

failed to

purpose— national development. The that the "market" will give them what

achieve the other historical

current passing fantasy

state-led industrialization could not, will not survive the acute

downturn of the next

The

five years.

fall

the widespread impotence regimes will

What

of Mazowiecki presages

feel.

choices are then available? Actually quite a few, though

none of them fit in with the Weltanschauung that has governed the world in the Wilsonian-Leninist era. We may start with the choice that is the nightmare of the North precisely because they can think of no way to respond to it. This is the Khomeini option. This is usually phrased as the menace of Islamic fimdamentalism but that is entirely the wrong emphasis. It is not particularly an Islamic phenomenon. And it is not particularly fimdamentalist, if by that is meant some reversion to ancient religious practices. The Khomeini option is primarily the culmination of anger at the horrors of the modern world-system, and it focuses the anger on its chief beneficiaries and instigators, the Western core of the capitalist world-economy.

It is

including, and even especially,

its

the denunciation of the West,

Enlightenment values, as the

incarnation of evil. If these were merely tactics,

mobilization, they could be dealt with. represent a genuine option, there

is

To

modes of popular

the extent that they

no avenue

for

communication

or for resolution.

How long can hard

to say.

such explosions

last?

How far can

they go?

It is

Khomeini's Iran seems to be on the path of passions

calming down, of reentry into the cultural orbit of the world-sys-

movements erupt in other counaround the South, and more of them simultaneously, within

tem. If tomorrow, however, other tries

a less stable world-system,

Could they not

may

they not

last

longer or go fiirther?

substantially advance the disintegration of the

current world-system, of which process they are themselves the

consequence?

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

22

The second option is the Saddam Hussein option. Here again we must be clear about what it is. This is not total rejection of the values of the modern world-system. The Baath was a typical national liberation movement and a thoroughly secular one. I believe the Saddam Hussein option is nothing but the Bismarck option.

It is

the sense that since

outcome of political rapports

economic inequities are the economic transformation

deforces^

The Iraq-U.S. confrontation is the first genuine North-South war. The wars of national liberation (say requires military strength.

Vietnam) mination. started

all

had

From

a limited

and quite

clear objective: self-deter-

the South's point of view,

all

these wars were

by the North and could be ended by the North's

the South alone. In the Persian Gulf crisis, the

war was

letting

started

by

the South with the intent not of achieving self-determination but

of transforming the world rapport deforces. This

is

really quite

different.

Saddam Hussein may well lose the battle and be destroyed, but he has shown the way to a new option — creation of larger states, armament of these

states

not at the second level but

willingness to risk real warfare. If this

come, what

will

is

at the

top level,

an option whose time has

be the consequence? Terrible carnage, of course,

doubtlessly including the use of nuclear warfare (and quite possibly

From

North more dreadful than the Khomeini option. Perhaps you will wonder whether this is so different from the older wars between North and South, which were integral to the historic expansion of the boundaries of the modern

chemical and biological).

the point of view of both

and South, the Saddam Hussein option

world-system?

The answer

is,

same phenomenon. But, from it is

quite different.

tarily,

The

and confidence

lay

is

from a moral point of view,

a political

and

it is

the

military point of view,

old colonial wars were one-sided mili-

on the side of the Northern aggressors.

The new set of wars will be two-sided militarily, and confidence is now lacking in the North. It may be that the period 1945-1990 will

be remembered as the period of relative North-South peace

(despite Vietnam, despite Algeria, despite the multiple anticolonial struggles)

between the wave of the wars of European expan-

sion and die wave of twenty-first-century North-South wars.

The Cold War and the Third World: The Good Old Days?

The

third option

what

is

I

call the

23

option of individual

resis-

tance by physical relocation. In a world of increasing North-

South polarization, with Northern demographic decline and

how

Southern demographic expansion,

it

be

politically pos-

stem massive unauthorized South-to-North migration?

sible to I

will

believe there will be

migration will

no way

do

to

this,

and

this

South-to-North

come on top of authorized and unauthorized Of course, this has been occur-

migration from Russia and China. ring already.

think the scale will significantly escalate, and

Still, I

will thereby transform the structure of social life in the It is sufficient to

note two things.

The South

North.

within the North

may well reach the thirty to fifty percent mark by 2025. And there may well be an attempt to deny them political rights, which means that after

two hundred years of social integration of the working

classes in the North,

we would be back

early nineteenth century

— the

to the situation of the

disenfranchisement of the bulk

of the lower occupational strata. This

is

surely not a recipe for

social peace.

The

triple scenario

political

dilemmas

of options for the South no doubt poses

for the ruling elites of the world-system,

will react as they will react. for the

and

But

it

who

poses fundamental dilemmas

world Left as well, the antisystemic forces both

in the

North

in the South.

We

among the movements of the They did not know how to react to Khomeini. They do not know how to react to Saddam Hussein. They have can already see the confusion

Left in the North.

never had a clear position on unauthorized migration. In each case, they have not

wanted

to offer total

support, but they have

not wanted to support unconditionally Northern repression.

consequence evant.

is

that the

They were

Northern Left has been voiceless and

The irrel-

quite comfortable in engaging in solidarity with

national liberation

movements. In 1968 they could chant, "Ho,

Ho Chi Minh." But that was because the Vietminh and the NFL appealed to Wilsonian-Leninist values. Once Wilsonianism Ho,

and Leninism are both dead, once it is recognized that national development is an illusion (even a pernicious illusion), once we have given up on the basic strategy of transformation pursued for

the last

1

50 years, is there anything remaining for the Northern Left

other than patchwork? Is

it

any easier for the Southern Left? Are they ready

in the ranks of Khomeini or

Saddam Hussein, to

gies in the migration option?

same hesitancies

as the

I

think

Northern

it is

Left.

invest their ener-

doubtful.

They

to enhst

They have

the

too wish to shake the

world-system and recognize that these options

all

do shake the

world-system. But they too have doubts that these options lead to the world of equality

much

for just as

The

and democracy

as the

that the

Southern Left stands

Northern Left does.

us, as we move into (when the capitalist world-economy will be in full and acute crisis), is whether new transformatory movements with new strategies and agendas will

the

serious

first

and quite open question before

half of the twenty-first century

in fact emerge. It is

that

the

is

quite possible, but far from sure.

The

no one has put forward new strategies and agendas

now

reason

to replace

defunct Wilsonian-Leninist strategies for the Third

World, themselves

mere extension of the nineteenth-century power employed by both the socialist

a

strategy of achieving state

and the

nationalist

This, however, If

it

movements.

is

the very concrete challenge for the world Left.

does not respond seriously or soon, the collapse of the capi-

talist

world-economy

in the next fifty years will simply lead to

its

replacement by something equally bad. In any case, the North-

South confrontation gle

from

now

on.

It

will

be

at the

center of world political strug-

must therefore be

both historical social

scientists

and

at the center

of analyses by

political activists.

CHAPTER TWO

PEACE, STABILITY, AND LEGITIMACY, 1990-2025/2050

The period from 1990 peace, short on

to

stability,

2025/2050 will most likely be short on and short on legitimacy. In part, this is

because of the decline of the United States as the hegemonic power of the world-system. But in even larger part, crisis in the

because of the

world-system as a world-system.

Hegemony is

it is

one power

in the world-system

means by definition that there impose a stable conca-

in a geopolitical position to

tenation of the social distribution of power. This implies a period

of "peace," meaning primarily the absence of military struggle all

military struggle, but military struggle

Such

a period of hegemony requires,

ders, "legitimacy," if by that

is

and

meant the

feeling

amorphous groups such

actors (including

approve or that the world ("history") they would approve

is

great powers.

same time engenby major

political

as "populations" of the

various states) either that the social order

ly in a direction

among

at the

— not

is

moving

one of which they steadily

and rapid-

of.

Such periods of real hegemony, wherein the abihty of the hegemonic power to impose its will and its "order" on other major powers

is

without serious challenge, have been relatively short in

the history of the

modern world-system. In my

been only three instances: the United Provinces

view, there have

in the

mid-seven-

Kingdom in the mid-nineteenth, and mid- twentieth. Their hegemonies, defined

teenth century, the United the United States in the in this way, lasted

about twenty-five

to fifty years in

each case.^

When such periods have ended, that is, when the erstwhile hegemonic power became once again simply one major power among others (even

them and

if it

continued to be for some time the strongest among

militarily),

then quite obviously there ensued less

correlatively less legitimacy.

This implies

sense the present period following U.S.

25

stability,

less peace. In this

hegemony

is

essentially

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

26 no

different

from that which followed British hegemony in the

mid-nineteenth century or Dutch in the mid-seventeenth.

But

were

if this

there were to describing the period

all

1990-2025, or 1990-2050, or 1990-?, then worth discussing except

would

it

management

as a matter of the technical

of a shaky world order (which

how

is

many

too

scarcely be

politicians, diplo-

mats, scholars, and journalists have indeed been discussing

There

is,

much more,

however, more, probably

to the

it).

dynamic

of the coming half-century or so of great world disorder. geopolitical realities of the interstate system sively,

do not

The

rest exclu-

even primarily, on the military rapport deforces among that

privileged subset of sovereign states

we

call great

enough and wealthy enough

states that are large

powers— those

to

have the nec-

essary revenue base to develop a serious military capability. First of all, only

some

states are

tax base, such wealth being

more

wealthy enough

to

have such a

the source than the consequence

of their military strength, though of course the process circular reinforcement. that of other states

is

And

one of

is

the wealth of these states relative to

a function

both of their

size

and of the

axial

division of labor in the capitalist world-economy.

The

capitalist

world-economy

is

a

system that involves a hier-

archical inequality of distribution based

on the concentration of

certain kinds of production (relatively monopolized, fore high-profit, production) in certain limited zones,

upon and thereby become capital.

there-

the loci of the greatest accumulation of

This concentration enables the reinforcement of the

structures, ative

and there-

which

which

state

in turn seek to guarantee the survival of the rel-

monopolies. But because monopolies are inherently

fragile,

and Hmited but

signifi-

there has been a constant, discontinuous,

cant relocation of these centers of concentration history of the

all

through the

modern world-system.

The mechanisms

of change are the cyclical rhythms, of which

two are the most consequential. The Kondratieff cycles are approximately

fifty to

sixty years in length.

reflect the length lies

Their A-phases essentially

of time particular significant economic monopo-

can be protected; their B-phases are the periods of the geo-

grai)hical relocation of

production whose monopolies have been

Peace, Stability,

and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050

27

exhausted, as well as the period of struggle for control of the

new monopolies. The longer hegemonic cycles involve between two major states to become the successor to

prospective a struggle

the previous

hegemonic power by becoming the primary locus of

the accumulation of capital. This ally involves

war."

Once

a

is

a long process,

having the military strength

new hegemony is

instituted,

to

its

win

which eventu-

a "thirty years'

maintenance requires

heavy financing, which eventually and inevitably leads tive

decline of the current hegemonic

power and

to a rela-

a struggle for a

successor.

This mode of

a

slow but certain repeated restructuring and

recentering of the capitalist world-economy has been very effica-

The rise and decline of great powers has been more or less same kind of process as the rise and decline of enterprises: The monopolies hold for a long while, but they are ultimately undermined by the very measures taken to sustain them. The subcious.

the

sequent "bankruptcies" have been cleansing mechanisms, ridding

powers whose dynamism is spent and replacing them with fresher blood. Through it all, the basic structures of the system have remained the same. Each monopoly of power held for a while but, just like economic monopolies, was undermined by the very measures taken to sustain it. All systems (physical, biological, and social) depend on such the system of those

cyclical

rhythms

to restore a

world-economy has shown system, and

it

minimal equilibrium. The

itself to

capitalist

be a hardy variety of historical

has flourished rather exuberantly for some

hundred years now,

a long time for

five

an historical system. But

systems have secular trends as well as cyclical rhythms, and the secular trends always exacerbate the contradictions (which

systems contain). There comes a point

become

when

all

the contradictions

so acute that they lead to larger and larger fluctuations. In

the language of the

new science, this means

the onset of chaos (the

sharp diminution of that which can be explained by deterministic equations), is

a

which

certain but

whose occurrence unpredictable. Out of this

in turn leads to bifiircations,

whose shape

is

inherently

new systemic order emerges. The question is whether the

historical

system in which we are

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

28 living, the capitalist

world-economy, has entered, or

into,

such

offer

some guesses about

of "chaos."

a time

propose

I

to

is

entering

weigh the arguments,

the forms such "chaos" might take,

and

discuss what courses of action are open to us.

I

PROPOSE NOT TO DISCUSS AT LENGTH THE ELEMENTS

I

consider to be the "normal" reflections of a Kondratieff B-phase or of a hegemonic B-phase; briefly.2

cycle

is

I

will

merely summarize them very

should, however, make clear that, although a hegemonic

I

much

longer than a Kondratieff cycle, the inflection point

of a hegemonic cycle coincides with that of a Kondratieff cycle (but not, of course, every one). In this case, that point was around

1967-73.

The phenomena B-phase

symptomatic of a normal Kondratieff

that are

slowdown of growth

are: the

in production,

and prob-

ably a decline in per capita world production; a rise in rates of active

waged work unemployment;

from productive rise

activity to gains

a relative shift of loci of profits,

from financial manipulations;

a

of state indebtedness; relocation of "older" industries to lower-

wage zones;

a rise in military expenditures,

whose justification

is

not really military in nature but rather that of countercyclical

demand

creation; falling real

wages

in the formal

economy; expan-

sion of the informal economy; a decline in low-cost food production; increased "illegalization"

The phenomena monic decline cial

instability; decline

markets with the

crises of the

ing)

increased economic strength of "allied" major

are:

powers; currency

world

of interzonal migration.

symptomatic of the beginning of hege-

that are

rise

hegemonic

of authority in world finan-

of new loci of decision making;

state;

fiscal

decline of organizing (and stabiliz-

political polarization

and tension

(in this case, the

cold

war); a decline of popular willingness to invest lives in the mainte-

nance of hegemonic power.

seems to me to have been "normal" and What should now happen, in the "normal"

All this, as I've said, historically expectable.

cyclical process,

is

the rise of replacement structures.

enter, within five to ten years, a

We

should

new Kondratieff A-phase, based in new

on new monopolized leading products, concentrated

Peace, Stability,

and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050

29

most obvious locus, Western Europe the second, the United States the third (but what may prove to be a poor third). locations. Japan

We

is

the

now

should also

new competition

see a

for

hegemony

beginning. As the U.S. position crumbles, slowly but visibly, two

successor applicants should flex their muscles. In the current situation, they

could only be Japan and the European Community.

Following the pattern of the two previous successions— England vs.

France

to

succeed

Germany to succeed

to

Dutch; and the United States

to the

Great Britain

not immediately, but over the next the sea/air power, Japan,

fifty to

would transform

power, the United States, into

its

vs.

— we should in theory expect, seventy-five years, that

the previous

hegemonic

junior partner, and begin to

compete with the land-based power, the EC. Their struggle should culminate in a "thirty years' (world) war" and the putative triumph

ofjapan. I

should say right off that

rather not quite.

I

I

do not expect

this to

happen, or

think both processes of reorganization

the worldwide system of production

and

— that of

that of the distribution

worldwide of state power— have already begun, and in the direction of the "traditional" (or

"normal" or previous) pattern. But

I

expect the process to be interrupted or diverted because of the entry into the picture of new processes or vectors.

To

analyze this clearly,

fi-ames: the

I

think

we need

three separate time

next few years; the following twenty-five to thirty years;

the period after that.

The

situation in

quite "normal." it is

which we

It is

find ourselves today in the

not yet one that

I

would

call

Kondratieff B-phase— comparable

is

"chaotic"; rather

the final acute subphase (or the culminating

current

1990s

to

moment) of the 1932-39, or

1893-97, or 1842-49, or 1786-92, etc. The worldwide rates of unemployment are high, rates of profit low. There is great financial instability, reflecting acute and justified nervousness in the financial market about short-run fluctuations. Increased social unrest reflects the political inability

of governments to offer plausible

short-run solutions and therefore an inability to re-create a sense

of security. Both scapegoating within states and beggaring-thy-

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

30 neighbor among

become more

states

politically attractive in situa-

where the usual adjustment remedies seem

tions

to

provide litde

instant alleviation of pain.

In the course of this process, a large

number of individual

enter-

prises are reducing their activity or are being restructured or are

going bankrupt, in

many

cases never to reopen. Particular groups

of workers and particular entrepreneurs will thereby lose out per-

manently. While

all

states will suffer, the

degree of suffering will

vary enormously. At the end of the process, some states will have risen,

and others

will

have

fallen, in

comparative economic

strength.

At such moments, great powers are often paralyzed because of a combination of internal political

militarily

instability, financial

(and therefore reluctance to bear military costs), and

difficulties

concentration on immediate economic dilemmas (which leads to

popular isolationism). resulted

when

paralysis.

The

world's response to the warfare that

Yugoslavia collapsed

And

this,

I

insist, is

is

a typical instance of

"normal"

— that

is,

such

part of the

expectable patterns of the operation of the capitalist world-

economy. Normally,

we should then come

into a time of recovery. After a

shakedown of the waste (both of luxury consumerism and ecological carelessness)

and

inefficiencies

erbedding or bureaucratic thrust, lean

rigidities)

(whether logrolling or feathshould come a new dynamic

and mean, of new monopolized leading industries and to augment the total renewed expansion of the world-

newly created segments of world purchasers effective

demand — in

economy en

The

route to a

short,

new

era of "prosperity."

three nodes, as already suggested

knowledged, will be the United

The

first

and

as

is

widely ac-

States, Western Europe, and Japan.

ten years or so of this next Kondratieff A-phase will

doubt see an acute competition of the three centers

no

to gain the

edge for their particular product variation. As Brian Arthur has

been showing

which particular variant wins out do with technical efficiency, and everything to do with power.^ One might add persuasion to power, except that

has

little

in his writings,

or nothing to

in this situation

persuasion

is

largely a function of power.

and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050

Feace, Stability,

31

The power of which we are speaking is primarily economic power, but it is backed by state power. Of course, this constitutes a

A

self-reinforcing cycle:

little

power

which creates more power, and so on.

leads to a It's

a matter of one country's

propelling itself into the lead and running with a threshold is passed.

"VHS"

The

persuasion,

little

it.

At some point,

"Beta" products lose out,

and there

are

My bet is simple: Japan will have more EC, and U.S. entrepreneurs will make deals with

monopolies.

"VHSs" than

the

Japanese entrepreneurs to get a cut of the pie.

What

the U.S. entrepreneurs will get out of such arrangements,

as they fully

and 2010, Japan

is

commit themselves in the years between, say, 2000 quite obvious— not being left out altogether. What

will get

out of it

United States

(1) if the

United States will for tics

is

many

still

equally obvious, three things especially:

is

a partner,

it is

not a competitor; (2) the

be the strongest military power, and Japan

reasons (recent history and

its

impact on internal poli-

and regional diplomacy, plus the economic advantages of low

military expenditure) will prefer to rely for a while yet; (3) the

ture in the

United States

world-economy, even

will eventually disappear.

still

if its

on

a U.S. military shield

has the best

R&:D

struc-

advantage in this area too

Japanese enterprises

will

reduce costs

by taking advantage of this structure. Faced with put aside

The EC

all

is

this

their

grand economic

alliance, the

EC members

will

minor quarrels, if they haven't long since done

incorporating the

EFTA

so.

countries, but will not incor-

porate the countries of east-central Europe (except perhaps in a limited free trade area, possibly akin to the relationship

between

States in NAFTA). EC) will constitute a second economic mega-

Mexico and the United

Europe lith

and

(that

is,

the

a serious competitor to the

minium. The

rest

Japan-United States condo-

of the world will relate to the two zones of this

bipolar world in multiple ways.

nomic centers of power, there sider in determining

how

From

will

the viewpoint of the eco-

be three crucial factors

important these other countries

degree to which their industries will be essential for,

the operation of the key

commodity chains;

to,

to

con-

are: the

or optimal

the degree to

which

particular countries will be essential to, or optimal for, the main-

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

32

demand

tenance of adequate effective

for the most profitable which particular countries

sectors of production; the degree to will serv^e strategic

raw materials,

The two

needs (geomilitar)^ location and/or power, key

etc.).

countries not yet significandy or sufficiendy integrated

two networks

into the

include for

all

which

in creation, but

will

be essential

three of the above reasons, will be

China

to

for the

Japan-United States condominium and Russia for the EC. In order

two countries

for these

maintain

internal stabilit)'

haps be helped tion,

but

I

be well integrated, they will have

to

the case of Russia,

(or, in

and

to

first

Whether they can do

legitimacy.

do so by interested

to

achieve) a certain level of

parties,

is still

so,

and per-

an open ques-

beheve the odds are moderately favorable.

Suppose

this picture to

be correct: the emergence of a bipolar

world-economy with China part of the Japan-United and Russia part of the Europe pole. Suppose also

States pole

that there

is

a

new, even very large, expansion of the world-economy fi-om 2000 to

2025 or

tries.

so,

on the basis of new monopolized leading indus-

What can we

then expect?

Would we have

in effect a repeat

of the period 1945-1967/73, the "trente glorieuses" of worldwide

and above

prosperity, relative peace, future?

I

There

do not think will

most obvious

all,

high optimism for the

so.

be several differences that are evident. to

me

is

that

unipolar, world-system.

1945 and 1990

we

To

as unipolar

shall

be in

The

first

and

a bipolar, rather than a

categorize the world-system between is

not a view that

is

widely shared.

It

goes against the autodesignation of the world as one of a "cold war"

between two superpowers. But since

this

cold war was based on

an arrangement, made between two consenting antagonists, that the geopolitical balance

(despite freeze nists;

all

was never I

would be

essentially frozen;

and since

the public declarations of conflict) this geopolitical

by either of the two antagochoreographed (and hence

significantly violated

prefer to think of

it

extremely limited) conflict. In

as a

reality,

it

was U.S. decision makers

who were calling the shots, and their Soviet counterparts must have felt

the weight of this reality time

By

contrast, in the years

and time again.

2000-2025,

1

do not expect

that

we

Peace, Stability,

and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050

33

be able to say that either the Japan-United States condominium

will

EC

or the

litical real

portant a

will

be "calling the shots." Their economic and geopo-

power will be too balanced. In so elementary and unimmatter as votes in interstate agencies, there will be no

automatic, or even easy, majority.

few ideological elements to

this

To be

sure, there

The

competition.

may be very may be

base

almost exclusively that of material self-interest. This will not necessarily

make

patch

over with mere symbols. As the conflict becomes less polit-

it

the conflict less acute; indeed,

it

will

be harder

to

it may become more mafioso in form. The second major difference derives from the fact that the world investment effort may be concentrated in China and Russia during

form,

ical in

2000-2025 to a degree comparable to the concentration of investment in Western Europe and Japan in the years 1945-67/73. But this will mean that the amount that is left over for the rest of the world must be different in 2000-2025 than in 1945-67/73. In 1945-67/73, virtually the only "old" area where there was continued investment was the United States. In 2000-2025, continued investment will have to cover the United the years

Western Europe, and Japan (and indeed

States,

as

Korea and Canada

one has invested

The

as well).

a

few others such

question, therefore,

in the "old" areas plus the

is.

After

"new" ones, how much

The

remain (even in small doses) for the rest of the world?

will

answer

This

will surely

be

much

less

than in the period 1945-67/73.

in turn will translate into a situation quite different

"South" (however defined). Whereas,

for countries in the

in

1945-67/73, the South did benefit from the expansion of the

world-economy,

at least

from

its

crumbs, in 2000-2025

it

risks

not getting even crumbs. Indeed, the current disinvestment (of the

may be continued

Kondratieff B-phase) in most parts of the South

rather than reversed in the A-phase ahead. Yet the

demands of the South

will

be not

less

economic

but more. For one thing, the

awareness of the prosperity of the core zones and the degree of the

North-South gap

The

is far

greater today than

third difference has to

it

was

lation continues for the time being to follow the

tern

it

fifty

years ago.

do with demography. World popu-

has followed for some two centuries now.

same basic

pat-

On the one hand.

THE 1990s AND after: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

34 there

is

for the

worldwide growth.

It is

fueled primarily by the fact that,

poorer five-sixths of the world's population, death rates

have been declining (for technological reasons) while birth rates have not been or have not been declining as

much

absence of sufficient socioeconomic incentive).

(because of the

On the other hand,

the percentage of world population of the wealthy regions of the

world has been declining, despite the death rate has been

because of the as a

far

still

fact that the decline in their

sharper than that of the less wealthy regions,

greater lowering of their birth rate (primarily

way of optimizing

the socioeconomic position of middle-class

families).

This combination has created

demographic gap

a

(perhaps exceeding) the economic North-South gap. this

gap was there already in 1945-67/73. But

then because of the

was

These

swept aside, precisely during the

sure,

less great

persisting cultural barriers in the

still

to limiting the birth rate.

demographic

it

parallelling

To be

North

now been largely 1945-67/73 period. The world

barriers have

figures of 2000-2025 will reflect this far

more acute

disparity in social practices.

The response we can

expect

gration from South to North.

is

truly massive pressure for mi-

The push

will clearly

be there, not

only from those prepared to take low-paid urban employment but a fortiori from the significantly

growing numbers of educated per-

sons from the South. There will also be a bigger pull than before, precisely because of the bipolar split in the core zones, as well as the consequent acute pressure this will cause employers to reduce

labor costs by employing migrants (not only as low-skilled personnel but also as middle-level cadres).

There

will of

course be (there already

enter.

The

and

an acute social

to limit the sociopolitical rights of those

result

re-

— a call for more repressive legislation to

action within the North limit entry

is)

may be

who do

the worst of all de facto compromises: an

inability to prevent effectively the entry

of migrants, combined with

the capability to ensure second-class political status for them.

This would imply

that

and (even) Japan, the "Southcrrj" origin

may

by 2025 or

so, in

North America, the EC,

p()j)ulation socially defined as being of

well range from twenty-five to

fifty

percent.

Peace, Stability,

and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050

and much higher

in certain subregions

35

and within

large

But since many (perhaps most) of these persons

centers.

have voting rights (and perhaps only limited access

urban

will

not

at best to social

welfare provisions), there will be a high correlation of those occu-

pying the lowest-paid urban jobs (and urbanization will by then have reached ical

new

heights) with those

(and social) rights.

and France

It

was

this

who

are being denied polit-

kind of situation in Great Britain

in the first half of the nineteenth century that led to

well-founded fears that the so-called dangerous classes would pull the house

down. At that time, the industrialized countries invented

the liberal state to

overcome just

this danger, granting suffrage

and

offering the welfare state to appease the plebeians. In 2030,

Western Europe/North America/Japan may find themselves in the

same position

as Great Britain

and France were

in in 1830.

"The

second time as farce"?

The

fourth difference between the prosperity that reigned

between 1945 and 1967/73 and what we can expect between the years

2000 and 2025

middle

will

have to do with the situation of the

strata in the core zones.

These were the

great beneficiaries

of the period 1945-67/73. Their numbers increased dramatically,

both absolutely and relatively. Their standard of living went up dramatically as well.

And

the percentage of posts defined as "middle

stratum" went up sharply as well.

major

pillar

The middle

strata

became

a

of stability of the political systems, and they formed a

very large pillar indeed. Furthermore the skilled workers, the eco-

nomic stratum below them, came to dream of nothing more than to become part of these middle strata via union-backed wage in-

—

creases, higher education for their children,

improvement

Of course, rise in costs

the overall price for this expansion

ivity"

is

was

a significant

of production, a secular inflation, and a serious

squeeze on the accumulation of capital.

B-phase

and government-aided

in living conditions.

The

present KondratiefF

consequently spawning acute worries about "competit-

and about the

fiscal

burdens of the

state.

This worry

will

not diminish, but will indeed increase, in an A-phase in which there are

two acutely competing poles of growth. What one can expect

therefore

is

a persistent effort to reduce, absolutely

and

relatively.

THE 1990s AND after: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

36 the

numbers of middle

strata

the production processes

in

(including the service industries). There will also be a continuation

of the present attempt to reduce state budgets, an attempt that ultimately will threaten

The

most of all these middle

strata.

cutback on middle strata will be

political fallout of this

very heavy. Educated, used to comfort, middle strata threatened

with being declasse will not take passively such a retrogression of status

and income.

We

already saw their teeth during the world-

wide revolution of 1968. To pacify them, economic concessions were made from 1970

to

1985. These countries are paying the

price now, and these concessions will be difficult to renew, or,

renewed,

will affect the

the Japan-United States

if

economic struggle between the EC and condominium. In any case, the capitalist

world-economy will be faced with the immediate dilemma of either limiting capital accumulation or suffering the politico-economic revolt of erstwhile

The

fifth

middle

strata. It will

be a

bitter choice.

difference will be in the ecological constraints.

Capitalist entrepreneurs have

been

living off the externalization of

costs from the beginnings of this historical system.

One major

externalized cost has been the cost of renewing the ecological base

of an ever-expanding global production. Since entrepreneurs did not renew the ecological base and there was also no (world) government ready to tax sufficiently for this purpose, the ecological base of the world-economy has been steadily reduced. The last and largest expansion of the world-economy, from 1945 to 1967/73, used up the remaining margin, which is what has given rise to the

green movements and the planetary concern for the environment.

The expansion of 2000-2025 will therefore lack the necessary One of three outcomes is possible. The expans-

ecological base.

ion will be aborted, with the attendant political collapse of the

world-system. is

The

ecological base will be depleted

more than

it

physically possible for the earth to sustain, with attendant catas-

trophes such as global warming.

Or the social costs of cleanup, lim-

itation of use,

and regeneration

will

If the third,

and functionally

least

three strain

is

the collective path chosen,

be accepted seriously. immediately damaging, of the it

would

create an immediate

on the operations of the world-system. Either the cleanup

Peacey Stability,

and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050

37

would be done at the expense of the South, thereby making still more acute the North-South disparity, and providing a very clearly focused source of North-South tension, or the costs would be disproportionately assumed by the North, which would necessarily involve a reduction of the North's level of prosperity. Furthermore,

whichever path

is

taken, serious action

on the environment

will

inevitably reduce the margin of global profit (despite the fact that

environmental cleanup will

itself become a

source of capital accu-

mulation). Given this second consideration, and given a context

of acute competition between the Japan-United States condo-

minium and

the

EC, we may expect considerable cheating and

therefore inefficacy in the process of regeneration— in

which case

we are back to either the first or the second outcome. The sixth difference will be in the reaching of two asymptotes in the secular trends of the world-system: geographical expansion

and deruralization. The

capitalist

world-economy had already

in

theory expanded to include the entire globe by 1900. This was,

however, true primarily of the reach of the interstate system.

It

came

com-

true of the reach of the production networks of the

modity chains only true of both.

undergoing

The

in the period capitalist

1945-67/73.

It is

be-

now, however,

world-economy has equally been

a process of deruralization

exactly, proletarianization) for four

(sometimes called,

hundred

years,

and

less

for the last

two hundred with increasing speed. The years 1945-67/73 saw a spectacular

jump

in

this

process

America, and Japan becoming

— Western

Europe, North

fully deruralized

partially but significantly so. It is

probable

this

and the South process will be

completed in the period 2000-2025.

The

ability

of the capitalist world-economy to expand into

new

geographical zones has historically been a crucial element in maintaining

its

rate of profit

and hence

its

accumulation of capital. This

has been the essential counter to the creeping rise in the cost of labor engendered by the combined growth in both political and

workplace power of the working

classes. If now there are

no longer

new working strata who have not yet acquired either the political or the workplace

power

to increase the part of the surplus value they

could retain available to be recruited, the result would be the same

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

38

kind of squeeze on the accumulation of capital that

by ecological exhaustion. Once geographical and populations deruralized, the ical

being caused

is

limits are reached,

by the

difficulties entailed

polit-

process of cost reduction become so great that savings can't

really

be achieved. Real costs of production must

and therefore

There

profits

must

a seventh difference

is

A-phase and the

last

one;

rise globally,

decline.

between the coming Kondratieff

has to do with the social structure and

it

the poUtical climate of the countries of the South. Since 1945, the

proportion of the middle

This wasn't hard, since it

went from only

doubled

South has risen

strata in the

was extraordinarily small up

it

to then. If

percent of the population, then

five to ten

in proportion and, given the population increase,

pled or sextupled in absolute numbers. Since five

significantly.

percent of the world's population,

large group.

which they

The

feel

cost of keeping

them

we

it

has

quadru-

this is fifty to seventy-

are talking about a very

at the

consumption

level to

minimally entitled will be impressively high.

In addition, these middle strata, or local cadres, were by and large quite

busy with "decolonization"

This was obviously true of all those South

that

were colonies

as of

in the period

1945-67/73.

living in those parts of the

1945 (almost the whole of Africa,

South and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and miscellaneous other areas). It

was

also almost as true of those living in the "semi-

colonies" (China, parts of the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern

Europe), where various forms of "revolutionary" activity comparable in psychic tonality to decolonization were occurring.

It is

not necessary here to evaluate the quahty or the existential meaning

of all these movements. of these movements:

It is

enough

to

observe two characteristics

They consumed the energies of large numbers

of people, especially of the middle

strata.

And

these people were

suffused with political optimism, which took a particular form, best

summed up

in the pithy saying

the political kingdom,

practice this

meant

and

all

that the

of Kwame Nkrumah: "Seek ye

things shall be

middle

weak economic

pohtical

South (and the somewhat patient about

strata of the

potential middle strata) were ready to be their

status: they felt sure that if they

power during

first

added unto you." In

a first thirty-year

could achieve

period or so, they or dieir

Peace, Stability,

and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050

39

children would find their economic reward in the subsequent thirty-year period.

In the period 2000-2025, not only will there be no "decolonization" to preoccupy these cadres and keep

them optimistic but also

their

economic

situation will almost certainly

the

various

reasons

adduced

above

become worse,

(concentration

for

on

China/Russia, expansion of numbers of cadres in the South, world-

wide

effort to cut

(that

is,

Some of these may escape North. This will only make the plight of

back on middle

migrate) to the

strata).

who remain more bitter. The eighth and ultimately most

those

last

serious difference between the

and the next Kondratieff A-phase

is

purely political: the rise of

democratization and the decHne of liberahsm. For

it

must be remem-

bered that democracy and Uberalism are not twins but, for the most part, opposites. Liberalism

problem

was invented to counter democracy. The

that gave birth to liberahsm

gerous classes,

first

was how

to contain the

dan-

within the core, then within the world-system

The liberal solution was to grant limited access to politpower and limited sharing of the economic surplus value, at levels that would not threaten the process of the ceaseless accumuas a whole. ical

lation of capital or the state-system that sustained

The

interstate ily

it.

basic theme of the liberal state nationally

and the

liberal

system worldwide has been rational reformism, primar-

via the state.

The formula of the liberal state, as it was developed

in the core states in the nineteenth century

— universal suffrage

plus the welfare state— worked marvelously well. In the twentieth century, a comparable formula in the

was applied

to the interstate

system

form of the self-determination of nations and the economic

development of underdeveloped nations.

It

stumbled, however,

over the inability to create a welfare state at the world level (as advocated, for example,

by the Brandt Commission). For

this

could

not be done without impinging on the basic process of the capital

accumulation of capital.

The

ula applied within core states

reason was rather simple:

depended

for its success

The

on

a

form-

hidden

variable— the economic exploitation of the South, combined with anti-South racism. At the world level, this variable did not exist, logically

could not

exist.

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

40

The consequences

cHmate are

for the pohtical

clear.

The

years

1945-67/73 were the apogee of global liberal reformism: decolonization, economic development, and, above all, optimism about the future prevailed everywhere— West, East, North, and South. However, in the subsequent Kondratieff B-phase, with decolonization completed, the expected economic development

became

in

most areas

Furthermore, for

all

a faint

memory, and optimism dissolved. we have already discussed, we do

the reasons

not expect economic development to return to the fore in the South in the

coming A-phase, and we believe optimism has thus been

fatally

undermined.

At the same time, the pressure steadily growing.

authoritarian. It

Democracy the demand

is

been

and

anti-

basically antiauthority

for equal say in the political process

and equal participation

at all levels

system.

is

for democratization has

The

greatest constraint

on

socioeconomic reward

in the

this thrust

has been liberalism,

with its promise of inevitable steady betterment via rational reform.

To democracy's demand

for equality

now, liberalism offered hope

deferred. This has been a theme not merely of the enlightened

(and more powerful) half of the world establishment but even of the traditional antisystemic

movements

of liberalism was the hope

it

offered.

(the

To

"Old

Left").

The

the degree that the

pillar

dream

withers (like "a raisin in the sun"), liberalism as an ideology collapses,

and the dangerous

THIS, THEN,

IS

classes

become dangerous once more.

WHERE WE SEEM TO BE HEADING

A-phase, circa 2000-2025. Although tacularly expansive period in

it

will

some ways,

IN

THE NEXT

appear to be a spec-

in others

it

will

be very

why I expect little peace, little stability, and little legitimacy. The result will be the onset of "chaos," which is merely sour.

This

is

the widening of the normal fluctuations in the system, with

cumu-

lative effect. I

believe a series of things will occur,

nomena. What may be thrusts

rium.

different will

and thus bring the system back

The

question

is,

To what degree

limit the thrusts prevail?

none of them new phe-

be the to

inability to limit their

some kind of equilib-

will this lack

of abihty to

Peace, Stability,

l)The

and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050

ability of the states to

ably decline.

The

^1

maintain internal order will prob-

degree of internal order

is

always fluctuating,

and B-phases are notoriously moments of difficulty; for the system as a whole, however, and over four to five hundred years, internal order has

been steadily increasing.

We may call

this the

phenomenon of the rise of "stateness." Of course, over the last one hundred years, the imperial structures within the capitalist world-economy (Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, most recently the U.S.S.R./Russia) have disintegrated. But the thing to notice

struction of states,

which created

is

all

rather the historic con-

their citizenry out of all those

Such was metropolitan Great Britain and France, the United States and Finland, Brazil and India. And such also was Lebanon and Somalia, Yugoslavia and

located within their boundaries.

Czechoslovakia.

One may eral

The breakup

or collapse of the latter

is

quite

from the breakup of the "empires."

different

dismiss the breakdown of stateness in the periph-

zone as either expectable or geopolitically insignificant.

But it goes against the secular trend, and the breakdown of order in too

many

states creates a serious strain

the interstate system.

It is

of stateness in the core zones that

undoing of the argued

is

tion of security

2) The

and regulated

happening.

is

The

result

is

The

for five

that they

in a direction out

hundred

years.

system has also been growing more structured

for several

hundred

years,

from Westphalia

world government. In a

claimed

its

imminence

a cynical reception.

as a

The

to the

UN and its family. There has been a

assumption that we have been easing ourselves into a

tional

states

the steady privatiza-

and welfare, which moves us

Concert of Nations to the tacit

most threatening. And the

demands for both security and welfare

we had been moving

interstate

fianctioning of

compromise, which we have

liberal institutional

are politically unable to meet.

of which

is

occurring, suggests that this

are deluged with

on the

however the prospect of the weakening

spirit

"new world

threat to

fiinc-

of euphoria. Bush pro-

which met with "stateness" and the disaporder,"

pearance of reformist optimism have on the contrary shaken an interstate

system whose foundations were always

relatively

weak.

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

42

Nuclear proliferation rapid, as

now

is

as inevitable,

expanded South-North migration

and

will

be as

will be. Per se,

it is

not catastrophic. Medium-size powers are probably no less

may be

"trustworthy" than big ones. Indeed they

prudent in that they may

even more.

fear retaliation

the

all

more

Still, to

the

extent that stateness declines and technology advances, the

creeping escalation of local tactical nuclear warfare

may be

difficult to contain.

As ideology recedes flicts,

as the explanation for interstate con-

the "neutrality" of a

weak confederal United Nations be-

comes ever more suspect. The limited as

may

it is,

mosphere. The

ability

of the

UN to "peacekeep,"

decline rather than increase in such an at-

call for

"humanitarian interference"

may come

be seen as merely the twenty-first-century version of nine-

to

teenth-century Western imperialism, which also affected lizational justifications.

civi-

Might there be secessions, multiple

secessions, from the nominally universal structures (following the line North Korea has suggested vis-a-vis the

IAEA)? Might

we

It is

see the construction of rival organizations?

not to be

ruled out.

come

3) If the states (and the interstate system) efficacy, to is

where

already clear

will

to

be seen

people turn for protection?

as losing

The answer

— to "groups." The groups can have many labels

— ethnic/religious/linguistic groups, gender or sexual preference groups, "minorities" of multiple characterizations. This too

nothing new.

What

is

new

is

the degree to

are seen as an alternative to citizenship state that

is

which such groups

and participation

by definition houses many groups (even

if

in a

unequally

ranked). It is

a

matter of trust.

Whom

we

shall

trust in a disorderly

world, in a world of great economic uncertainty and disparity, in a

world where the future

is

not

at all

the majority answered the states. This

imacy, least

if

is

guaranteed? Yesterday,

what we mean by

legit-

not of the states that existed in the present, then

of those states

we could expect

at

to create (postreform) in

the near future! States had an expansive, developmental image;

groups have

a defensive, fearful

image.

and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050

Peace, Stability,

At the same time (and

43

this is precisely the rub), these

same

groups are also the product of the phenomenon of democratization, of the sense that the states have failed because liberal

reform was a mirage, since the "universalism" of the states involved in practice forgetting or repressing strata.

Thus

many of the weaker

the groups are products not only of intensified fear

and disappointments but raising, and thus are a very

also of egalitarian consciousnesspowerfiil rallying point.

It is

hard

to

soon diminish. But given

imagine that their political role will

their self-contradictory structure (egalitarian but inward-

looking), the amplification of this role

may be consequently

quite chaotic. 4)

How

then will

we dampen

the spread of South-South wars,

minority-minority conflicts in the North, that are one kind of derivation of such "groupism"? military, position to

their resources in

intensified

And who

do such dampening?

is

in the moral, or

Who is ready to invest

especially given the projection of an

it,

and roughly balanced North-North competition

(Japan-United States

vs.

EC)? Here and

there,

be made. But for the most part, the world in the Iran-Iraq

war and

as

it is

will

some

efforts will

look on, as

it

did

doing in former Yugoslavia or

in the Caucasus, or

indeed in the ghettos of the United States.

This

more

will

be

all

South-South

Even more

the

number of simultaneous

true as the

conflicts grow.

who

serious,

will limit

North-South

little

wars,

not only initiated, but deliberately initiated, not by the North but

by the South,

as part of a long-term strategy of military

The Gulf War was the beginning, not the end, process. The United States won the war, it is said. But at

confrontation?

of this

what price? At the price of revealing its financial dependence on others to pay for even little wars? At the price of setting itself a very limited objective

— that

is,

one

far less

than unconditional

surrender? At the price of having the Pentagon discuss a future

world military strategy of "win, hold, win"? President

Bush and

the U.S. military

get their limited victory without

much

money). The gamble worked, but

it

gambled

that they could

expenditure of lives (or

may seem wise

to the

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

44 Pentagon not

how

to

push one's

luck.

Once again, it is hard to see combined mihtary of the

the United States, or even the

North, could handle several Persian Gulf "crises"

at the

And, given the pattern of the world-economy and

time.

the evolving world social structure

2000-2025, who would be so bold

I

same

that of

have postulated for

as to argue that

such multiple

simultaneous Persian Gulf "crises" will not occur? 5)

There

one

is

—a new

last factor

Black Death.

of chaos

The

we should not underestimate

etiology of the

remains a subject of great controversy.

AIDS

have launched a process:

No

AIDS pandemic

matter, since

it

may

has promoted the revival of a

new deadly TB whose spread will now be autonomous. What is next? The spread of this disease not only reverses a longterm pattern of the capitalist world-economy (parallel

to

reversing the pattern of the growth of stateness and the strength-

ening of the interstate system) but also contributes to the further

breakdown of stateness both by adding to the burdens of the state machinery and by stimulating an atmosphere of mutual intolerance. This breakdown in turn feeds the spread of the

new diseases. The key thing to understand is variable will be eases:

that

one cannot predict which

most affected by the spread of pandemic

dis-

reduces food consumers but also food producers.

It

reduces the number of potential migrants, but

it

It

increases labor

shortages and a need for migration. In every case, which vari-

more? We shall not know until it is over. This is simply one more instance of the indeterminacy of the outcome

able will be

of bifurcations.

THIS, THEN,

IS

THE PICTURE OF THE SECOND TIME FRAME, THE

entry into a period of chaos. There

outcome, the new order that because

it is

the

relative

tion

It is

is

most

is

a third time frame, the

Here one can be most brief chaotic situation is, in a seeming

created.

most uncertain.

paradox, that which vention.

is

A

sensitive to deliberate

during periods of chaos, as opposed

order (relatively determined order), that

makes

a significant difference.

human to

inter-

periods of

human

interven-

Peace, Stability,

and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050

^^

Are there any potential interveners of systemic, constructive vision?

and

I

There

see two.

are the visionaries of restored hierarchy

privilege, the keepers of the eternal flame of aristocracy.

Individually powerful persons but lacking any collective structure

—the "executive committee of the ruling meeting— they act (if not conjointly, then

class" has never held a in

tandem) during

sys-

temic crises because they perceive everything to be out of control.

At that point, they proceed on the Lampedusan principle: "Everything must change in order that nothing change."

and

will invent

dence in

offer the

world

their intelligence

and

is

to

know, but

perspicacity.

system will be offered, and they its

hard

may be

I

What they

have confi-

Some new

able to

push

historical

the world in

direction.

Against them are the visionaries of democracy/equality (two concepts

I

believe to be inseparable).

1789-1989 varieties of

in the

"Old

They emerged

in the period

form of the antisystemic movements (the three

Left"),

and

their organizational history

was

that

of a gigantic tactical success and an equally gigantic strategic failure. In the

long run, these movements served more to sustain

than to undermine the system.

The question mark is whether a new family of antisystemic movements will now emerge, with a new strategy, one strong enough and supple enough to have a major impact in the period 2000-2025, such that the outcome will not be Lampedusan. They may fail to emerge at all, or to survive, or to be supple enough to win out.

2050 or 2075, we can thus be sure of only a few things. We shall no longer be living in a capitalist world-economy. We shall be living instead in some new order or orders, some new historical system or systems. And therefore we shall probably know once again relative peace, stability, and leAfter the bifurcation, after say

gitimacy.

But will

it

be a better peace,

stability,

and legitimacy than

we have hitherto known, or a worse one? That is both unknowable and up to us.

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT HOPE AFRICA? WHAT HOPE THE WORLD? ANGER AND CYNICISM WELL UP IN [U.S.] VOTERS AS HOPE GIVES WAY.

New

When I

York Times, October 10,

1994

Dakar in 1952, 1 came in contact moments of the colonial era, an Africa in which nationalist movements were coming into existence and rapidly flourishing everywhere. I came in contact with an Africa whose populations, and particularly its young people, were optimistic and sure that the future looked bright. They were angry first set

foot in Africa, in

with an Africa in the

last

about the abuses of colonialism and suspicious of the promises of the colonial

powers and more generally of the West, but they had

faith in their

own ability to reshape their world. More than anything

else,

they yearned to be free of any kind of tutelage, to make their

own

political decisions, to

services,

and

provide their

to participate fully in the

own

personnel for public

world polity of nations.

In 1952, Africans were not alone in such sentiments and in

would obtain their just due. The search regain national autonomy was common to what we began to

the expectation that they to

denote collectively as the Third World. Indeed, similar sentiments

pervaded the peoples of Europe.

And

the general optimism

shared even, perhaps especially, in the United States, where

life

was had

never seemed so good.

Here we

are in 1994,

The year of Africa,

and the world now looks very

a

The United Nations wan joke. And Afro-pessimism

1960, seems very long ago.

development decades seem is

different.

new and overused word

like a

in

our dictionary. In February 1994,

the Atlantic Monthly published an article about Africa that has

gotten wide publicity.

subheading reads:

Its tide is

"How

"The Coming Anarchy," and

its

scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism.

46

and disease

On May entitled

are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet."

29-30, 1994, Le Monde put on

"The

opens the

article

with

its

front page an article

museums of Nigeria." The correspondent

pillaged

this striking

comparison:

Imagine that audacious thieves succeeded in getting away

La Primavera of Botticelli. would make the teleprinters of the whole world crackle and would get at least 60 seconds of prime time on CNN. During the night of April 18-19, 1993, some

with the Auriga of Delphi or

Such

a feat

unknown persons

stole

from the collection of the National

Museum of Ife in Nigeria twelve exceptional pieces— ten human heads in terra cotta and two in bronze— which are recognized as among the masterpieces of African sculpture. More than thieves are rest of

a year later, they have still

free and, aside

humanity (not

not even

know

And on June commented on

this

to

still

not been found; the

from a few

specialists, the

speak of the Nigerian public) do

has happened.

23, 1994 a reviewer in the

London Review of Books

Basil Davidson's latest book.

He notes

that despite

the fact that, for Davidson, Africa remains "a continent of hope,"

even he paints a dismal picture of "the failed promises of independence." in the

The

reviewer adds that whatever Davidson "detects

way of hopeful

signs can.

.

.

be very tenuous

reviewer then ends with this assessment: "For very

"

The

many Africans,

mercy of kleptocracies, dictatorships and derailed liberamovements sometimes of all three there is not much

at the

tion

—

—

solace" in Davidson's book.

So here we have it. From the wonderful days of 1957 (the independence of Ghana) and 1960 (the year sixteen African states became independent, but also, let us remember, the year of the

Congo

and 1963 (the founding of the Organization of African Unity) to 1994 when, insofar as we hear anything at all crisis)

—

about Africa in the world press, what we hear from the newspapers

is

that

a country

Somalia

is

a land of feuding clan warlords,

where Hutu and Tutsi slaughter each

47

other,

Rwanda

is

and Algeria

THE 1990s AND after: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

48

(once proud and heroic Algeria)

a land

is

To be

the throats of intellectuals.

where Islamist groups cut

sure, there has

been one

bit

of

wonderful news: South Africa has made an unexpectedly peaceful

and

transition out of apartheid

may vote. We new South Africa are

all

into being a state

celebrating,

will

where

not founder. But

we

citizens

all

and affirming the hope

that the

are also holding our

breath.

What

has happened in thirty years, that a continent suffused

with hope became a continent described by outsiders (and indeed

by many of its own those used

intellectuals) in terms almost as negative as

in nineteenth-century discourse?

to say immediately.

One

is

There

are

two things

that negative geocultural descriptions

of Africa are not new; they are a return to the

opeans have regarded Africa for

mode

in

which Eur-

at least five centuries, that is,

throughout the history of the modern world-system. mistic, positive language the

The

opti-

world used in the 1950s and 1960s

was exceptional and, it seems, momentary. The second thing to say is that what changed between the 1960s and the 1990s is not so

much

Africa as the world-system as a whole.

We

shall not

be

able to assess seriously anything about the state of Africa today or

possible trajectory until

its

we

first

analyze what has been hap-

pening in the world-system as a whole in the

The

defeat of the Axis powers in 1945

last fifty years.

marked

the

end of a long

struggle— a sort of "thirty years' war"— between Germany and the

United States

to

be the successor hegemonic power

Kingdom, whose decline had begun

in the 1870s.

to the

The

United

colonial

conquest of Africa, the so-called Scramble, was a by-product of the interpower rivalry that

was no longer

dominated the scene once Great Britain

in a position to decree unilaterally the rules of world

order and world commerce.

The United

States, as

we know, won

this thirty years'

war

"unconditionally," and in 1945 stood alone in the world-system

with an enormous productive apparatus that had become not only the

most

efficient

cally intact

of the time but also the only one that was physi-

(untouched by wartime destruction). The story of the

next quarter century was that of the consolidation of the hegemonic role of the

United States by appropriate measures

in the three geo-

What Hope Africa? What Hope

the

World?

49

graphic arenas of the world, as the United States came to define

them— the

Soviet sphere, the West, and the Third World.

While the United States was unquestionably way out in front of its nearest competitors in the economic arena, this was not the case in the mihtary arena, where the U.S.S.R.

power

(although, be

it

of the United States).

said, at

The

was

no point matching

a

second super-

fully the

power

U.S.S.R., in addition, presented

itself

dominant Wilsonian

as incarnating the ideological opposition to

liberalism in the form of Marxism-Leninism.

However,

at the ideological level,

Marxism-Leninism had

become more a variant of Wilsonian liberalism than a genuine alternative. The two ideologies shared in fact a commitment to the basic presumptions of the geoculture. They agreed on at least six major programs and worldviews, agreement in

if

sometimes they expressed

slightly different language: (1) they

this

stood for the prin-

ciple of the self-determination of nations; (2) they advocated the

economic development of all

states,

meaning by

that urbanization,

commercialization, proletarianization, and industrialization, with prosperity and equality at the end of the rainbow; (3) they asserted a belief in the existence of universal values, applying equally to all

peoples; (4) they asserted their faith in the validity of scientific

knowledge

(essentially in its

Newtonian form)

as the only rational

basis of technological improvement; (5) they believed that

human

progress was both inevitable and desirable, and that for such progress to occur there must be strong, stable, centralized states; 6)

—but

they stated a belief in the rule of the people

— democracy

they defined democracy as a situation in which rational

reforming experts were in fact allowed to make the essential political decisions.

The

degree of subliminal ideological accord greatly facilitated

the division of world tially

were

three: (a)

power on

The

in a chasse gardee in Eastern in a divided

the terms of Yalta,

which essen-

U.S.S.R. could have de facto suzerainty

Europe (and by

Korea and China), provided

it

fiirther

amendment

in effect restricted

its

opposed to rhetorical) claims to this zone alone; (b) the two sides would guarantee total absence of warfare in Europe; (c)

real (as

each side could and would suppress groups in radical opposition

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

50

to the existing geopolitical order ("leftists" in the U.S. zone; "ad-

venturers" and "nationalists" in the Soviet zone). This agreement

did not render impossible or implausible an ideological struggle,

even one conducted with great fanfare.

sumed and even encouraged to

be pursued within

it.

But

On

the contrary,

Of course,

the wartime allies

its

designated

a further element of this "legal separation" of

was

that the U.S.S.R.

was not

to

expect any sort

of postwar economic assistance from the United States in struction. It

was on

its

This is not the place it

to note that

was

barring full-scale military in-

strict limits,

volvement of one or the one great power outside domain.

pre-

it

this ideological struggle

its

recon-

own. to

review the history of the cold war. Suffice

between 1945 and 1989, the accord (as outlined Each time its terms

here) was essentially carefully observed.

seemed threatened by

forces outside the immediate control of the

two superpowers, they managed their tacit accord.

to rein in these forces,

For Africa, what

the late 1950s, both the U.S.S.R.

this

and the United States had taken from

a formal position in favor of decolonization, deriving

theoretical

commitment

and renew

meant was very simple. By

to universal values.

To be

sure,

their

it

was

often the case in practice that they gave covert (and even overt) poHtical and financial support to different political particular countries.

movements

in

The fact is, however, that Africa was inside the

and outside the Soviet, zone. Hence, the U.S.S.R. always severely limited its involvement, as may be seen both in the Congo crisis of 1960-65 and in the postindependence destabilization U.S.,

attempts in southern Africa in the post- 1975 period. In any case,

African liberation movements had

first to

survive on their

own

before they were able to get even moral support from the U.S.S.R.

and

a fortiori

The

from the United

States.

policy of the United States toward

its

major

allies in the

world arena— Western Europe and Japan— was rather ward.

It

sought

to aid their

straightfor-

economic reconstruction massively

(notably via the Marshall Plan). This was crucial for the United States both economically difficult to

efficient

and

politically.

Economically,

it

was not

understand. There was litde point in creating the most

economic machinery

in the

world-economy,

if

there were

What Hope Africa? What Hope

no customers

the

World?

5I

for the products. U.S. enterprises

needed an eco-

nomically restituted Western Europe and Japan to serve as the principal external outlets for

have played

its

this role in the

alliance systems

No

production.

postwar period.

other zones could Politically, the

two

— NATO and the U.S. -Japan Defense Treaty

guaranteed the United States two crucial additional elements in the structure

it

was erecting

to

maintain

its

world order: military

bases across the world, and a set of automatic and powerful political allies (for a

long time, serving more as clients than as

allies) in

the geopolitical arena.

This alliance structure of course had implications for Africa.

The west European

states

were not only the main

of the

allies

United States but were also the principal colonial powers in Africa.

The

colonial

powers were

hostile to

any U.S. involvement in what

they persisted in regarding as their "internal States

affairs."

was therefore cautious about offending

in the period

The United

its allies,

1945-60, when the U.S. government

shared the views of the colonial governments

especially

still

largely

— that precipitate

decolonization was dangerous. African liberation movements were

nonetheless able to force the pace.

And by

1960, the "downward

sweep of African liberation" was already half completed. The year 1

960 marks a turning point, since

this

"downward sweep" had now

reached the Congo, and thus the zone of political and economic hard-core resistance to decolonization, the settler-cum-mining

zone of southern Africa.

Within

a year, there

The

were two

only within the Congo, but

so-called

among

Congo

two and

(in fact,

crisis

erupted.

a half) sides

not

the independent African states

We all know the outcome. Lumumba was assassinated and the Lumumbists suppressed. The and indeed

in the

world

as a whole.

secession of Tshombe's Katanga was also put down. Colonel

Mobutu came crisis also

to preside

over Zaire; he

pushed

The Congo

the United States into thenceforth playing a

direct role in Africa, deciding to defer to the (ex-)colonial

The

there.

transformed the geopolitical stance of the United States

in Africa. It

way

is still

scenario that the United States

colonial world after

no longer

in

any important

powers.

hoped would occur

in the

1945 (and more generally in the non-European

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

52

world) was one of slow, gentle political change that would bring to

power

so-called moderate leaders with nationalist credentials

who would continue, and work to augment, their country's involvement

The

in the

commodity chains of the

U.S.S.R.'s official position was that

power of progressive forces In practice, as in

its

capitalist

we have

that

would be

world-economy.

favored the coming to

it

"socialist" in orientation.

already said, the U.S.S.R. was lukewarm

support of such forces, as can be seen in their go-slow advice

to the

Chinese Communist Party

in

1945, in their long delay in

supporting the independence movement in Algeria, and in the support the

Cuban Communist

Party gave to Batista right

up

to 1959.

What

neither the United States nor the U.S.S.R. expected was

the intensity of the national liberation

European world alist

at this time.

To be

outbreaks were suppressed

Iran; in Madagascar,

sure,

movements all

in the extra-

kinds of radical nation-

— in Malaya, the Philippines, and

Kenya, and Cameroon; in multiple countries

of the Americas. Even where such uprisings were suppressed,

however, they pushed forward the calendar of decolonization.

And

in four countries, there

were extremely strong, ultimately

victorious, wars of liberation that left a major mark.

China, Vietnam, Algeria, and Cuba. In

ments refused

to

all

They were

four cases, the move-

accept the rules of the game as the United States

defined them, and as the U.S.S.R. tacitly endorsed them.

The

details of

the history,

each case were different because the geography,

and the array of internal social forces were

different.

But

movements shared certain features: (1) they imposed their arrival in power on the world-system's great powers, by the fierceness with which they pursued their political autonomy; (2) they proclaimed a belief in modernity and national development; (3) they sought power in the state as the necessary prerequisite of social transformation, and once in power they sought to achieve full all

four

legitimation by the populace of the strong state they were erecting; (4) they

were sure that they were riding the wave of historical

progress.

By 1965, world.

The

Bandung seemed to have conquered the liberation movements had come to power

the spirit of

national

What Hope Africa? What Hope

World?

the

53

everywhere, except in southern Africa, and armed struggle had

begun there

as well. It was, if

you

will, a strange situation.

Never

seemed so in control of the situation, so on top of everything. Yet never had antisystemic movements seemed so strong. It was the calm in the eye of the hurricane. There were had the United

States

warning signals

early

in Africa.

The year 1965 saw

the

fall

of some

of the symbolic figures of the so-called Casablanca group, the

group of more "militant" in Algeria.

UDI,

It

was

states:

Nkxumah

also the year the

in

Ghana and Ben

Rhodesian

settlers

the Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

United States, it was the year of the

first

Vietnam

the Chinese Cultural Revolution started.

1968 was

Bella

proclaimed

And

in the

teach-in. In 1966,

The momentous

year of

in sight.

Early in 1968 the Tet offensive signaled the incapacity of the

win the war in Vietnam. In February, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. And in April, the worldvdde revolution of 1968 began. Over three years it occurred everywhere in North America, Europe, and Japan; in the Communist world; and in Latin America, Afi-ica, and South Asia. The local manifestations were, to be sure, each different from the other. But two themes were common, making of these multiple uprisings a worldwide event. The first was antagonism to U.S. hegemony (symbolized by opposition to its role in Vietnam) and to Soviet coUusion with the United States (as evoked in the theme of the "two superpowers"). The second was a deep disillusion with the so-called Old Left, in all its three major variants: Social-Democratic parties United States

Communist

in the West;

ments

Old

to

Left as

one might argue

Old

parties;

and national liberation move-

Third World. The revolutionaries of 1968 saw the insufficiently and ineffectively antisystemic. Indeed,

in the

Left

that,

was the prime

even more than the United States, the villain

of the piece for the revolutionaries

of 1968.

As

a political event, the

world revolution of 1968 flared up

quickly and then was extinguished.

embers— mostly

in the

By 1970, there were only sects. By 1975, even the

form of Maoist

embers had been extinguished. Nonetheless, the revolution

left

a

lasting impact. It delegitimized reformist centrist liberalism as the

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

54

reigning ideology of the geoculture, reducing liberalism to merely

one competing ideology right

its

and

to its left. It

in the arena, with strong forces

both to

soured people everywhere on the

state as

the instrument of social transformation.

mism about

And

it

destroyed the opti-

the inevitability of progress, especially

when

the last

avatar of such optimism, its own meteoric career, fizzled out. The mood had turned. The events in 1968 took place at just the moment that the world-

economy was entering into the Kondratieff-B downturn in which we still find ourselves today. Once again, as has happened repeatedly in the history of the capitalist world-economy, the high

came to an end, primarily monopoly of a few firms had been undermined

profitability of the leading sectors

because the

relative

by persistent entry into the market of new producers attracted by the high rates of profit,

and usually supported by governments of

semiperipheral states.

The

profit

from productive

acute decline in worldwide rates of

activities resulted, as

one could expect,

in

reduction of production and unemployment in the loci of leading sectors; consequently in the reduction of purchases of rial

raw mate-

imports coming from peripheral zones; further relocation of

industries to semiperipheral zones in search of lowered labor costs;

acute competition between states in the core zone seeking to shift

the negative burdens to each other; and a significant shift of investors from seeking profits in production to seeking profits in financial (speculative) activities.

In this particular B-phase, the two major events that brought the

economic stagnation

could be said oil

to

to the world's attention (but

have caused the stagnation) were the

prices in the 1970s

and the debt

crisis

by no means

rise in

OPEC

of the 1980s. Both of

course had particularly negative consequences for the South in general, not least of

all

for Africa. It

significance as politico-economic

is

worth discussing

their

mechanisms of adjustment.

In 1973, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries,

or

OPEC — a group

tence for

more than

jirice rise.

that

a

had been

decade

in

somnolent and obscure

exis-

— suddenly announced a spectacular

Notice several things about this event. Oil prices had

been remarkably low during the whole KondratiefT A-phase, when

What Hope Africa? What Hope

World?

the

55

world production was expanding. Yet it was precisely at the moment when the world-economy began to be in trouble, and

when producers were everywhere beginning to they could

sell their

seek ways in which

products in a tighter market by either reducing

their prices or reducing their costs, that the oil their prices,

and not by

a small

amount. The

producers raised

effect,

of course, was

to raise the costs of production of almost every industrial process

worldwide, since all

or indirect

component of almost

of this production.

What was it

oil is a direct

was

the rationale of such an action?

by the oil-exporting

a syndical action

One might argue

that

states seeking to take

advantage of an economically weakened Western world to alter the distribution of world surplus value in their favor. This might

explain

why members

governments

of

at the time,

such action. But

OPEC who

why would

States in the oil region

had

politically radical

such as Algeria or Iraq, were pushing for the two closest allies of the United

— Saudi Arabia and Iran (the Iran of the

Shah)— have not merely gone along but

actually taken the lead in

obtaining the

OPEC accord on a joint price rise? And if the action

was intended

to rectify the distribution of world surplus value,

is it

that the

immediate

effect

was

actually to increase the

how

amount

of world surplus value in the hands of U.S. corporations?

Let us look

and

at

drastically.

what happens when you Since

it is

hard

quickly, several things follow.

The

go up, indeed go way up. This

is

tity

of oil sold

is

reduced, since

raise oil prices

suddenly

reduce the need for

to

revenues of the

oil

oil

very

producers

so despite the fact that the quanit

has become so expensive.

A

reduction in the quantity of oil sold means a reduction in world current production; that, however, that in the

is

actually a plus, given the fact

1960s there had been overproduction

leading sectors. Indeed,

it

in the erstwhile

makes more legitimate the laying

off of

industrial workers.

For non-oil-producing states in the peripheral ple,

most African

The price trial

states

of importing

oil

went up. The price of importing indus-

products in whose production

which

is

almost

all

zone— for exam-

— the oil price rise was a very severe blow. oil

played a significant role,

production as we have already noted, went up.

THE 1990s AND after: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

56

And

this

occurred

at a

time

when

the quantity and often the

per-unit price of exports was going down.

Of course, African states

(except for a few) found themselves in severe balance of payments

squeezes.

The

populations found themselves confronted with

reduced standards of living and deteriorating governmental vices.

They could

scarcely be content with this apparent

ser-

outcome

of the independence for which they had successfully struggled a

decade or so

earlier:

They turned

against the very

movements

they had previously supported so strongly, especially whenever they saw signs of corruption and high living

Of course,

oil

among

everywhere, including in the United States. inflationary thrust,

What

their elites.

prices did not rise for Africans alone; they rose It

was part of a long

which was generated by many other

factors.

the oil price rise (itself not a cause but a consequence of the

world-economic stagnation) did was

remarkably large portion of world surplus value

channeled

a

through

cash registers.

its

to create a big funnel that

What happened

revenue?

to this

Some

of it was kept by the oil-producing states as rent and served to permit luxury consumption for a small minority.

It

also for a short

while improved levels of income for a larger segment of the zenry.

citi-

permitted these states to improve their infrastructures

It

and conduct arms purchases on

a large scale.

socially less useful than the former, especially since

The it

latter

was

would permit

such spectacular wastage of lives and accumulated capital stock as the Iran-Iraq

war of the 1980s. But both kinds of expenditure-

and arms purchases— helped resolve part of the economic difficulties of the states in the North, from which the infrastructure

goods were imported. expenditures within the oil-producing states account for

Still,

only part of the revenue. Another large part went to the Seven

who no longwho continued to control worldrefining and oil distribution. What did they in turn do with

Sisters, that

is,

the Western petroleum corporations

er controlled oil production but

wide

oil

their extraordinary profit windfalls? In the

profitable production outlets, they placed a

money ency

in the

absence of enough good portion of this

world financial markets, fueling the incredible curr-

roller coaster

of the past two decades.

What Hope Africa? What Hope

World?

the

57

All this activity did not exhaust the coffers of this concentration

of world surplus value.

The

rest

was placed

as accounts in banks,

primarily in the United States but also in Western Europe.

come

profits

And

from lending the

the banks

time where

money

now had huge

new productive

that

is

additional

enterprise

Bank

deposited with them.

sums deposited— at a as com-

was slowing down,

pared with the Kondratieff A-phase. To

whom

could the banks

money? The answer seemed obvious: to governments in balance of payments difficulties, which meant almost all African states, large portions of Latin America and Asia, and almost all the so-called socialist bloc as well (from Poland to Romania to the lend the

U.S.S.R. to North Korea). In the mid-1970s, world banks pressed

upon

these governments,

which seized the opportu-

nity to balance their accounts in this

way and reduce somewhat

these loans

the immediate political pressures of unhappy ordinary citizens.

Similar loans were

made even

to the

oil-producing states

did not need to balance their accounts but

who were

who

anxious to

spend quickly on what they perceived (and misperceived)

as

"development." These loans in turn helped the Western countries

by counteracting the

world

to

purchase

Western countries must be analyzed

carefully.

inability of the rest of the

their exports.

The There

situation in

are three different

ways

to assess

1970s and continued in the 1980s. One

what happened is

fared globally. Globally, their rates of growth

to see

how

in the

countries

went down consider-

ably from the Kondratieff A-phase of 1945-circa 1970, although in absolute terms they of course kept growing.

assess

them

in relation to each other.

the best efforts of the United States (and the

Second, one can

Here we can see its

that, despite

early advantage

from

OPEC action deriving from the fact that it was less dependent

on

oil imports than Western Europe or Japan were), the U.S. economic position has declined overall in relation to Western Europe and especially Japan, despite constant short-term rever-

sals

of fortune.

Third, one can assess the Western countries in terms of internal distribution of surplus value.

While it could be said

that the pattern

of the A-phase had been one of overall improvement of income

THE 1990s AND after: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

58 levels

and some convergence of extremes, the pattern of the

B-phase has been rather one of considerable increase

A

polarization of revenue. at least for a

long time;

done quite

small percentage has

we have even invented

in internal

a term for

well,

them—

yuppies. But, aside from this small group, there has been a marked increase in internal poverty, a

and

siderable group,

of the middle larly

marked

from middle-class status

since

it is

for

for a con-

most of the

United States and Great Britain, but

true of continental Western Europe,

A word

income

rest

This internal polarization has been particu-

strata.

in the

fall

a decline in real

should be said

at this

also

is

and even of Japan.

point about East Asia, especially

constantly thrown in the face of Africans as a model of

successful development.

Whenever

there

is

a stagnation of the

world-economy and a squeeze on profits in general and profits from productive activities in particular, one geographic zone, previously not at the top of the profit-making hierarchy, tends to

do very well.

It

becomes the locus of considerable worldwide

relo-

cation of production, the beneficiary of the difficulties of the world-

economy as a whole. In the 1970s and since, this zone has been East Asia—Japan, primarily, with its immediate rim of the so-called Four Dragons benefiting next, and tertiarily (and more recently), a series of countries in Southeast Asia.

become

this beneficiary region is

except for two remarks.

How East Asia was able

to

not the point of this discussion,

A key role was

played by governmental

involvement in the construction of the necessary economic frame-

works and there

state protection

was no way

that a

of the internal markets. Furthermore,

second zone could have achieved the same

economic returns simultaneously.

It

could have been the case that

some region other than East Asia achieved

this

growth, but

it

could

not have been both East Asia and a second region. Hence, East Asia presents no relevant model for Africa in any near future. I

have spent so

because

it

was

a

much

time on the

OPEC

oil

key cause of economic distress.

It

price rise not

was

not;

it

was

merely one intervening process by which the world-economic stagnation had its mechanism in ilhiminatc the

effect.

detail 1

But it was very visible, and looking at the makes clearer the process. It also helps to

980s, when die world forgot about

oil

prices as they

What Hope Africa? What Hope

came down

the

World?

59

again, if not, however, quite to their

loans to governments

came home

1950

to roost in the 1980s.

balance of payments in the present, to create them

levels.

The

Loans solve

down

as the costs of debt repayment as a percentage of national

the line,

income

The decade of the 1980s started out with the so-called debt and ended with the so-called collapse of the Communisms.

go up. crisis

They are not unrelated. The term debt crisis appeared

in

producing country, announced

inability to

its

1982 when Mexico, an oilkeep up with debt

repayments and sought renegotiation of its debt. Actually the debt crisis initially

surfaced in 1980 in Poland, a heavy borrower in the

when

the Gierek government, faced with debt repayment

1970s,

problems, tried Solidarnosc.

because

it

to

The

began

reduce wage levels as a partial solution. Result: Polish

to

recommend

states)

was

got in trouble

IMF remedy for the situation IMF ask it to do this. What the IMF began

implement the

without even having the to

Communist government

to all countries in this situation (not least to African

that they reduce expenditures (fewer imports

and

less

welfare for the population) and increase exports (by keeping wages

low or lowering them, by diverting production from goods internal

consumption

to

for

whatever was sellable immediately on the

world market). The weapon the

IMF had

for ensuring

adoption

of this unpalatable advice was the withholding of short-term aid

by

all

the

Western governments should a given

IMF policy;

hence (given the debt

ernmental insolvency. to the pressure,

fully

One

state fail to

crisis) the

implement

prospect of gov-

African state after another would yield

though none did

as well as the only

country that

repaid a large debt in the 1980s, which was Ceau§escu's

Romania,

to the great joy of the

IMF and

the great anger of the

Romanian people.

The "debt

crisis" in Africa translated into

much

that

was

nasty:

famines, unemployment, massive deterioration of infrastructure, civil

wars, and the disintegration of state machineries. In southern

were compounded by the destabilization programs of the apartheid regime of South Africa, which was Africa, the difficulties

fighting

its

rear-guard action against the

African liberation

downward sweep of

— which was able to reach Johannesburg only in

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

60 1994.

We

will distort

our understanding of Africa's serious plight

of the 1980s, however,

and indeed,

as well,

in Latin

America.

socialist bloc)

if

we do not place

The

the world-economy.

it

in the larger picture of

crisis

of course occurred elsewhere

in terms of total

sums, occurred most notably

debt

The debt

of the Third World (plus the

crisis

meant the end of lending these countries new money.

Indeed, the flow of money in the 1980s was decidedly from South to

North, not in the other direction.

However, the problem of placing surplus value profitably did not disappear, since the absence of sufficient lucrative oudets for

productive investment continued.

The

collapse of the borrowers

of the 1970s (including the African states) was no doubt a problem for these borrowers, but

lenders,

who needed

to

it

lend

was

also a serious

money

to

problem

for the

someone. In the 1980s they

found two important new borrowers, and not minor ones: the major corporate enterprises of the world, and the government of the United States.

The 1980s

is

an era that will be remembered in the world of

corporations as the era of junk bonds and corporate takeovers.

What was going on?

Essentially, a lot of money

was being invested

in the process of buying corporations, largely in order to

up,

sell off

away all

chop them

and allow the other parts

profitable chunks,

(in the process, laying off workers).

to rust

The outcome was

not

at

increased production but rather enormous debts for such

corporations.

As

a result,

went bankrupt. approached, the

If

many

they

industrial corporations

were big enough,

states intervened to "save"

as

and banks

bankruptcy

them because of the

negative political and economic consequences.

The result, as in the

case of the savings-and-loan-associations scandal in the United States,

was huge

profits to the

junk-bond dealers and

a

huge

bill

for the U.S. taxpayer.

The huge

bill

deriving from corporate debts was

in the case of the

compounded,

United States, by the huge debt of military

The Reagan nonrevolution meant first of all, conown very loud rhetoric, a vast expansion of state involvethe U.S. economy and in the size of its bureaucracy.

Keynesianism. trary to

ment

its

in

Economically, what Reagan did was to reduce federal tax levels

What Hope Africa? What Hope for the wealthier

World?

the

6l

segments of the population (which resulted

in

further internal polarization) while simultaneously massively increasing military expenditures (which held back ratios).

But

unemployment

1980s went on, the United States was experi-

as the

encing, as a result of its borrowing, the same problems that Third

World debt had caused

Third World. There was, however,

for the

IMF was in no position to impose IMF poliStates. And politically, the United States was

one difference: The

on the United

cies

unwilling to impose them on

economic position

itself.

But in the process, the U.S.

now

strong competitors (Western

vis-a-vis its

Europe and Japan) was constantly

deteriorating, precisely because

of the military focus of U.S. investment. It is at this

intervened.

point that the so-called collapse of the

Communisms

We have already noted that its accepted starting point,

the rise of Solidarnosc in Poland, crisis. Essentially,

was

a direct

outcome of the debt

the socialist countries faced the

same negative

consequences of the world-economic stagnation as did the African states:

end of the impressive growth

rates of the

A-phase; decline

in real standards of living, if not in the 1970s, then in the 1980s;

deterioration of infrastructure; decline of governmental services;

and above

disillusionment vdth the regimes in power.

all,

illusionment focused on political repression, but

its

The

dis-

motor was

the failure of the promise of "development."

In the case of the U.S.S.R., the general problem of socialist states

accord.

The

arrangement. future but

It

we have argued,

a quite precise

allowed for rhetorical struggle about the distant

presumed

about the present, a bargain that was

a deal

To do

strong enough to control

of the U.S.S.R. to do difficulties

all

its

this,

both sides had

to

XXth

military

and allies. The ability now compromised by the

of the 1980s as well as, of course, by the

Party Congress.

Its

1956 with

problems were made worse by the

Keynesianism of the United States, which increased pres-

on the U.S.S.R. biggest dilemma of sure

be strong,

their satellites

part was

deterioration of ideological coherence that started in the

the

was compounded by the contradiction of the Yalta

Yalta accord was,

sedulously respected.

economic

all

to all

expend funds

it

didn't have. However, the

was not U.S. military strength but the

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

62

growing economic and

The United taut

political weaknesses of the

United

States.

States-U.S.S.R. relationship was held together like a

rubber band.

If the

was untenable. The

United States weakened

result

its

hold, the link

was Gorbachev's desperate attempt

to

save the situation by forcing an end to the cold war, disengaging

from Eastern Europe, and relaunching the U.S.S.R.

internally. It

turned out not to be possible— at least not the third part— and the U.S.S.R.

The

is

no more.

collapse of the U.S.S.R. has created

enormous

perhaps insurmountable ones, for the United

difficulties,

States. It has elimi-

nated the only political control the United States had over quite strong

economic

rivals,

its

now

Western Europe and Japan. While

it

kept the U.S. debt from further increasing by ending military

Keynesianism,

it

created as a consequence a massive problem of

economic deployment, with which the United very well.

And

ideologically, the collapse of

has eliminated the

last

States has not

coped

Marxism-Leninism

credence that state-managed reform could

bring about significant economic development of the peripheral

and semiperipheral zones of the

capitalist

world-economy. That

why I have argued elsewhere that the so-called Communisms was really the collapse of liberalism

is

But liberalism

as the

collapse of the as

an ideology.

dominant ideology of the geoculture (already

undermined in 1 968, and mortally wounded by the events of 1 989) has been a political pillar of the world-system, having been the

main instrument by which the "dangerous classes" (first the European working classes in the nineteenth century, then the popular classes of the Third World in the twentieth) were "tamed."

Without

a belief in the efficacy of national liberation,

dosed with

Marxism-Leninism, the popular classes of the Third World have little

reason to be patient, and they will cease to be so.

economic consequences of the end of military Keynesianism has been very bad news for Japan and East Asia. Finally, the

Their expansion

in the

1

980s was strongly fueled by both the

ability

money to the U.S. government and the ability to participate in the now dormant process of corporate takeovers. Thus the East Asian miracle, still real insofar as we look at it in terms relative to the United States, is now in trouble in absolute terms. to lend

What Hope Africa? What Hope

in

the

World?

63

These dramatic transformations of the late 1980s were marked Africa (as in Latin America and in Eastern Europe) by the rise

of two leitmotivs: the market and democratization. Before

look

at the future,

we must spend

a

moment

we can

dissecting them.

popularity of the "market" as organizing mantra

is

the counter-

part of the disillusion with the "state" as organizing mantra.

problem

is

that the market conveys

For some, particularly younger

The

two quite different messages.

elite

and/or socialist politicians,

crats

The

elements, erstwhile bureauthe great cry of pre-1848

it is

France— "Messieurs, enrichissez-vous!" And, as has been true for some five hundred years now, it is always possible for some new group to become "nouveaux riches." But, for most people, the turn to the "market" does not signify

any change in objective

at all.

Over

the past decade, people in

Africa (and elsewhere) have turned to the "market" for exactly the

same thing

hope

as they

had previously turned

to get is that elusive

pot of gold

to the "state."

at the

What they

end of the rainbow,

"development." By "development" of course they really mean equality, living as well as, as comfortably as, people

do in the North,

probably in particular as people do in American movies. But a

is

profound

promote

illusion.

egalitarian

this

Neither the "state" nor the "market" will

"development" in a

capitalist

world-economy,

whose guiding principle of the ceaseless accumulation of capital requires and generates ever-greater polarization of real income. Since most people are reasonably intelligent and reasonably aware, it

will

as

not take too long for whatever magic attaches to the "market"

medicine to dissipate, leaving a stunning hangover. Is

"democratization," and

its

annexed slogan of "human rights"

very different from the market? Well, yes and no. First of all,

have to be clear about what

is

we

meant by "democratization." Since

1945, there has been virtually no state in which there have not

been regular elections of the frage.

Such procedures we

seem

to

in

with near-universal suf-

recognize can be meaningless.

mean something more. But what

which two or more

inally,

legislature,

all

is this

We

more? Elections and not nom-

parties contest? Contest really

contest with votes counted correctly and not fraudulently,

contest fairly and not have the results annulled? If adding such

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

64 requirements

is

what it takes

ratization," then

But

in

I

to

move us in the direction of "democ-

suppose we have been making a

an era when the

New

Uttle progress.

York Times reveals that the governing

party ofJapan over the last forty-odd years, the Liberal Democratic Party, has

been receiving regular subsidies from the CIA, we may

be allowed

to

doubt whether the formality of holding

tested elections

is

The problem,

enough as

to talk

we know,

is

freely con-

of democratization. that

democracy,

has two quite different affective connotations.

like the

One

market,

goes with the

market as locus of enrichment; the other goes with the objective

The

of egalitarian development.

first

meaning of "democracy"

The second appeals to much larger, but politically weaker, group. The efforts to achieve

appeals to a small, albeit powerful, group. a

democratization in recent years in such bellwether African situations as

Togo, Nigeria, and Zaire have not been

aging. Perhaps, however, real real

development, and

if

terribly encour-

democracy can only be possible with

development

world-system, democratization

is

an illusion in the present

may not be much

better.

Am I then preaching a doctrine of hopelessness? Not at before

we can have

world-system

more

is

useful hope,

we must have

in disarray. Africa

is

But

The

in disarray, but not really

so than the rest of the world-system. Africa has

from an era of perhaps exaggerated optimism into a simism. Well, so has the world.

all!

lucid analysis.

From 1945

emerged

mood

of pes-

to the late 1960s, every-

thing seemed to be getting better and better everywhere.

From

the late 1960s to the late 1980s things started to go sour in various ways almost everywhere, and people began at the very least to

rethink their easy optimism.

Today we

angry, unsure of our verities,

and

are frightened, diffusely

in disarray.

reflection in collective consciousness of a

deep

This

is

crisis in

simply the

our existing

world-system, in which the traditional mechanisms of resolving

normal

cyclical

downturns are no longer working so

well, in

which

the secular trends of the world-system have led the system "far

from equilibrium." (to use the

We

are therefore approaching a "bifurcation"

new science) whose outcome is inherwhich can push us in possible alternative

language of the

ently indeterminate,

directions that are quite different from each other.

What Hope Africa? What Hope If

see

one wants

is

how

up

to face

the

World?

to Africa's

65

dilemmas, the

they are not special to Africa. Let

me

first

thing to

take four that are

frequently discussed about Africa, and try to put each in a wider context.

The

first is

the collapse of the national liberation move-

movement emerged during colonial times that incarnated Africans' demands for autonomous control of their own destiny and that led the political battle to achieve this goal. These movements were a nationally integrating force, mobilizing the populations in the name of a better life and a more equal world. They were against divisive particularisms withments. In almost every country, a

in the state, but in favor of the assertion of national

culture within the world-system.

and African

They were modernizing and

democratizing movements, and they purveyed hope. Yesterday, these

movements achieved their primary objective of none of these movements has sur-

national independence. Today,

vived intact; most have not survived at tion

is

ANC

the

of South Africa, and

objective only in 1994.

The

all. it

only real excep-

achieved

its

primary

Wherever these movements have crum-

bled in the post-independence era, no other political force has filled

the

vacuum

or has been able to mobilize national conscious-

ness in similar ways, nor are any such forces in sight.

This may be dismaying, but

is this

so special to Africa?

Have

movements fared better in South and Southeast Arab world, in Latin America and the Caribbean? Cer-

national liberation Asia, in the tainly the

stretch ter.

Communist movements

from the Elbe

And

if

we look

at

to the

power

in a geographic

Western Europe, and the extra-European

world of White settlement,

movements

that took

Yalu seem not to have fared any bet-

is

the picture really different?

The

of Afidca are the

movements Social-Democratic movements {lato sensii)^ which

also mobilized

popular opinion in modernizing, democratizing

directions,

there comparable to the national liberation

and which

also, in

decades of struggle to come

ments also now in

disarray,

to

most

cases,

were able

after

long

power. But are not these move-

renouncing old slogans, unsure of what

and incapable of obtaining the kind of mass affective support that had been their force? Personally I do not see much

they stand

difference.

for,

THE 1990s AND AFTER: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

66

The second

of Africa's dilemmas derives in part from the col-

lapse of these movements.

What we mean by their collapse is the They can no longer mobilize anyone.

withdrawal of mass support.

But what about the mobilizers, the cadres of all these movements,

whose upward mobility was made possible by the success movements— the politicians, the bureaucrats, the intellectuals? It was they who propagated the national project, and in many ways it was they who profited most by it. the strata

of these

As

movements began to collapse, as the objectives for which the movements' struggle seemed to recede into the horizon, these cadres seemed to scramble to shore, seeking individual salvation. The ideological commitments faded into the background, the the

was abandoned,

selflessness of the period of nationalist struggle

and many entered into

which the line became difficult to

a competitive scramble in

between the legitimate and the

illegitimate

distinguish.

This

is

no doubt true of the Africa of the 1990s. But

corruption of cynical see the is

elites

same phenomenon

an African specialty?

at

work

in Latin

graphic in the ex-Communist world.

I

venal

is

doubt

it.

We

America and Asia.

And one

needs only

It

to

read the headlines to realize that the corruption in Africa pales before that which daily comes to light in Italy and Japan, in France

and the United

What

States.

Nor

is this

created the disarray

but the fact

that,

of all those

expansion of the middle

is

new, of course.

not the corruption in high places

who

benefited from the worldwide

strata in the

period 1945-1970, so large

a percentage has fallen off the Ferris wheel on in the post- 1970 period.

nomically,

and then

fell

This group that rose

(while others did not)

bilizing force politically, harboring to all

its

downward

socially

is

turn

and eco-

an acutely desta-

deep resentments and turning

kinds of antistate, moralistic, and moralizing movements to

secure their personal safety and express their aggressions. But here, too, Africa

is

not special.

If anything, this

serious in

Europe and North America than

The

problem with which Africa

third

disintegration of the state

is

problem

it is

is far

more

in Africa.

said to be faced

is

the

structures. Certainly Liberia or Somalia

presents extreme examples of this

phenomenon. But once again

What Hope Africa ? What Hope

we need

to

the

World?

go beyond the glaring examples

The withdrawal the problem.

The new

threatened with

to

look

at the

problem.

of legitimation of the states resulting from the

movements

collapse of the national liberation

is

the

first

part of

antistate disposition of erstwhile cadres

downward

fundamental problem tarian

67

is

mobility

is

another part. But the most

the structural inability to provide egali-

development, while the demand for democratization

ceaselessly growing.

We

have already discussed the strain in

is

state

resources that world economic stagnation has caused. States have

been increasingly unable

to

provide services even

at the

inade-

quate levels at which they previously supplied them. This started a circular process. States have

found

it

more

difficult to raise

revenues. Their ability to ensure order has declined. to

As

the ability

ensure order has declined, people have turned to other struc-

tures to provide security

weakened the

and welfare, which

states.

But here, too, the only reason this decline in stateness

selves

in turn has further

were established.

that for over five

this is so visible in Africa is that

has set in so soon after the states themIf we

look

at this

worldwide, we can see

hundred years there was

a secular trend of

strengthening state structures, a trend that seems to have reached its

peak in the late 1960s and has started moving in the other direc-

tion everywhere. In the North,

it

under various of urban crime and

gets discussed

rubrics: the fiscal crisis of the states; the rise

the creation of self-defense structures; the inability of the states to

contain the influx of persons; the pressure to dismantle welfare state structures.

Finally,

structure

many point

to the collapse in Africa of physical infra-

and the dangerous trends in epidemiology. This is, of Highway systems, educational systems, hospitals are

course, true. in

bad shape and getting worse, and the money

ation doesn't

seem

be there.

The

to rectify the situ-

spread of AIDS

is

proverbial.

And even if its spread can be contained, there looms of new maladies spread by drug-resistant bacteria

the danger

coming

to

or viruses

into existence.

Here again, the problem is dramatic in Africa but scarcely it. Just as we seem to have hit a peak in the streng-

restricted to

THE 1990s AND after: CAN WE RECONSTRUCT?

68

thening of state structures some twenty-five years ago,

we may

also

peak in the two-century-long worldwide attack on infecand contagious diseases. The self-confident utilization of dramatic solutions may have undone some protective ecological have

hit a

tious

mechanisms, making possible new kinds of terrible, previously unknown, epidemic diseases. The breakdown in physical infrastructure cannot help in this regard. In any case, at a time when new strains of tuberculosis are emerging in U.S. cities, it is hardly the moment to deem this an African problem. If, however, the problem is not that of Africa but that of the world-system as a whole,

bystander in a world

do anything about the world-system

it?

is

is

Africa destined merely to be a

crisis, suffering its fate

My belief is

but not being able to

quite the contrary.

The

crisis

of

the opportunity of the world-system in general,

and perhaps of Africa

in particular.

While we can expect

in theory

that the very processes of our present world-system will exacer-

bate,

and not eliminate, the

disarray, a great

crisis,

we know

that this involves a

world disorder over twenty- five

to fifty years,

come some new kind of order. What we all do in this transitional period in which we

out

of which will

are living

will

determine whether the historical system(s) that will emerge

the

end of

this

process will in fact

at

be better or worse than the

modern world-system though whose demise we find ourselves living. There is not merely room in this period for action at the local level:

Action

at the local level is the critical variable that will deter-

mine how we come out of the

There

are

crisis.

no simple formulas.

We

need

more

to analyze

clearly

the existing world situation

and divest our minds of categories

and concepts

our vision

that have closed

natives that are, or can

and

all,

group at

to the real historical alter-

available.

revitalize local solidarities that turn

Above I

become,

think above

all

we need

to

need

to organize

outward and not inward.

we must become very aware

the expense of some other

We

group

that protecting is

our

own

self-destructive.

keep our eye on the

ball.

A more

equal distribution of goods, services, and power has got to be the basis

on which we

create our

new

historical system(s).

Our

time

horizons must be longer than they have been, in terms of the use

What Hope Africa ? What Hope

the

World?

6g

of our resources, both natural and human. In this kind of reconstruction, Africa a

zone

well placed to take a lead. Africa has been

is

our modern world-system, and we may

of exclusion in

expect that over the next twenty-five to ical,

fifty

years the ongoing polit-

economic, and cultural mechanisms of the world-system

operate to exclude Africa and Africans If Afiicans stay

system in Africans

mired in the claim

more.

still

for inclusion within the world-

present definition, they will

its

show

the

way

tilt

combining short-run

in

will

at

windmills. If

local meliorations

with a middle-run transformation of values and structures, they will

Do

not

agenda

for

help not only Africa; they will help the rest of us as well.

ask

me

We

cannot do

me

say one last thing.

action.

Let

or other non-Africans to draw

succeed as

it

tries.

it.

The

History

is

ball is very I

Africa has

chance of coming out of

way, is

— we

we may indeed

efforts,

struggle

all

have

this transition

this realization that

worth

it.

in Africa's court.

all

will inevitably

— at best a fifty-fifty

with something better.

very

And if we

we think it is, this much an important

if

engage in

it

achieve the kind of world-system

though the road is

much

not necessarily on our side, and

integral part of this process.

around

a specific

do not say Africa

beUef will work against us. But we are

and

up

is

we must

in the right

we

want.

It

organize our collective

hard and the outcome uncertain, the

PART

II

THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

CHAPTER FOUR

THREE IDEOLOGIES OR ONE? TKE PSEUDOBATTLE OF MODERNITV

The

story line of modern times, in terms of the history of ideas or

of poHtical philosophy, this

is

a familiar one. It can

be briefly stated in

way: There emerged during the nineteenth century three great

political ideologies

— conservatism, liberalism, and socialism. Ever

since, the three (in ever-changing guises) have

been

in constant

struggle with each other.

Virtually everyone

would agree

these ideological struggles. a response to the fact that in the

to

two generalizations about

One, each of these ideologies represents

new

collective

oudooks had been forged

wake of the French Revolution, which gave

that specific political strategies

were necessary

rise to the feeling

cope with a new

to

Two, none of the three ideologies has ever been encrusted one definitive version. Quite the contrary; each has seemed to

situation.

in

appear in as many forms as there have been ideologists.

No

doubt, most people believe that there are some essential

differences

among these ideologies. But the closer one looks

at the theoretical

more disagreement one

the

is

there are. ical

are.

even disagreement about how many different ideologies

There

leaders

who

are quite a few theoreticians

have argued that there are in

and quite reality

not three, ideologies, although the pair to which

reduce the tives

who

trio is itself debated.

who

say the

conservatism, and even liberals distinction

term

is

That

is

a few polit-

only two, and possible to

it is

to say, there are conserva-

see no essential difference between liberalism and

socialism, sociaHsts

This

what these

finds about exactly

presumably essential differences

There

either

statements or at the actual political struggles,

same thing about

who

liberalism

argue that there

is

and

no serious

between conservatism and socialism.

in itself strange,

ideotofry in its

but the story does not stop there.

many usages has never been

72

a

word

The

that people

or groups have liked to use about themselves. Ideologists have

who

always denied being ideologists— except for Destutt de Tracy, is

said to have invented the word.

word to

But Napoleon quickly used the

was

against him, saying that political realism

to

be preferred

ideology (by which he meant a theoretical doctrine), a senti-

ment shared by quite

A

a few politicians then

half-century later, in The

word

to characterize a

German

and

since.

Marx used

Ideology^

worldview that was both

partial

and

serving, the view of a class (the bourgeoisie). Ideology, said

was destined working

to

class,

self-

Marx,

be replaced by science (reflecting the views of the

which was the universal

Marx about

the partial

but added Marxism to the

and

list

And

still

further.

He

in the

agreed

self-serving nature of ideologies,

of such ideologies.

replace ideologies with Utopias, classless intellectuals.

Mannheim,

class).

period between the two world wars, went with

the

which he saw

after the

He wanted

Second World War, Daniel

Bell expressed the weariness of Mannheim's intellectuals with

ideologies and Utopias.

to

as the creation of

both

When Bell proclaimed the end of ideology,

he was thinking primarily of Marxism, which he saw giving way to a sort of gentle, nonideological liberalism,

based on an awareness

of the limits of politics.

Thus,

for the

two centuries of its existence, the concept of ide-

ology has been perceived negatively, as something one had to reject or to supersede. But does this allow us to understand what an

ideology

is,

what people have intended

of ideologies?

which to

I

shall

I

to

accomplish by means

shall treat this subject via five queries,

answer

totally,

but

all

none of

of which represent an attempt

understand the concept of modernity and

its

links with the

concept of ideology:

1)

What is

2)

Who is the "subject" of an ideology?

the difference between an an ideology and a Weltanschauung (or worldview)?

What is the relation of ideologies to the state(s)? 4) How many different ideologies have there really been?

3)

5) Is

it

possible to supersede ideology, that

operate without one?

73

is,

can one

— THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

74

WELTANSCHAUUNG AND IDEOLOGY There is an anecdote, probably apocryphal, about Louis XVI, who,

upon hearing from the Bastille,

"No,

the

Due de Liancourt about

said to have asked,

is

a riot?''

''Is it

Sire, it's a revolution" (Brunot,

the storming of

Came

1937, 617). This

the reply,

not the

is

place to discuss once again the interpretation of the French Revolution,

except to indicate that one of its principal consequences for

the world-system

was

that

it

made

acceptable for the

first

time the

idea that change, novelty, transformation, even revolution, were

"normal," that

is,

not exceptional,

arena, at least of the

is

phenomena of

political arena.

^Vhat

normal quickly became perceived

as statistically

This

modern

what Labrousse was

referring to

the political

at first

appeared

as morally normal.

when he

said that Year II

was "a decisive turning point," after which "the Revolution took on a prophetic,

annunciatory role, bearing within

ideolog)' that

would eventually

Watson the

it

an entire

emerge" (1949, 29). Or, as "The Revolution [was] the shadow under which

said:

whole nineteenth

add — the twentieth

fully

centur)' lived" (1973,45).

centur)' as well.

The

To which I would

revolution marked the

apotheosis of seventeenth-centur)* Newtonian science and eigh-

what we have come

teenth-centur)' concepts of progress; in short, to call modemit)'.

Modernit}'

is

the combination of a particular social

particular Weltanschauung, or vvorld>'iew,

buried, another pair that, precisely to indicate

we now

designate as the Ancien Regime.

realit)'

and

a

which has replaced, even

No

how

outdated

it is,

doubt not ever)'one

way to this new reality and this new worldSome welcomed them, some rejected them, others were

reacted in the same view.

unsure

how

change

that

to react.

But very few were unaware of the degree of

had occurred. The anecdote about Louis XVI

is

very

telling in this regard.

The way

in

which people within the

capitalist

reacted to this "turning point" and dealt with the

world-economy

enormous discom-

bobulation resulting from the shock of the French Revolution the "normalization" of political change, as

which now came

to

be seen

something inevitable, occurring regularly— is an essendal com-

yc

Three Ideologies or One? The Pseudobattle of Modernity

ponent of the cultural history of this world-system. Might

it

not be

useful therefore to think of "ideologies" as one of the ways in which

people coped with not

itself a

to the

this

new

situation? In this sense, an ideology

coming of this new Weltanschauung we obvious that the

It is

diate one,

is

Weltanschauung but rather one response among others

had

first

call

modernity.^

ideological reaction, an almost

imme-

come from those who were most profoundly

to

shocked, even repelled, by modernity, by the cult of change and

Thus ideology we

progress, by the persistent rejection of whatever was "old." it

was

that Burke, Maistre,

have come to

call

and Bonald invented the

"conservatism." A great British conservative. Lord

Cecil, in a booklet written in

1912 and intended

to

be a popular

statement of the doctrine of conservatism, specifically emphasized the role of the

French Revolution in the birth of the ideology.

He

asserted that there had always existed a sort of "natural conser-

vatism," but that before 1790 there was nothing "resembling a

consciously held

body of Conservative doctrine" (1912,

Certainly, in the

.

.

.

39).

view of conservatives,

the French Revolution

was but the culmination of the back to the

historical process of atomization that reached

beginning of such doctrines as nominalism, religious dissent, scientific rationalism,

and the destruction of those

groups, institutions and intellectual certainties which had

been basic

in the

Middle Ages. (Nisbet, 1952, 168-169)

Conservative ideology was thus "reactionary" in the immediate sense that it was a reaction to the coming of modernity, and set itself the objective either (the hard version) of reversing the situation entirely or (the

more sophisticated

version) of limiting the

and holding back as long as possible the changes Like ical

all

ideologies, conservatism

program. Conservatives knew

was full

first

that

damage

were coming.

and foremost

well that they

had

a politto

hold

on to or reconquer state power, that the institutions of the state were the key instruments needed to achieve their goals. When

power in France in 1815, they bap"Restoration." But as we know, things did not

conservative forces returned to tized this event a

THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

76

go back to the status quo ante. Louis XVIII had

really

a "Charter,"

and when Charles

X

to

concede

tried to install a true reaction,

he was ousted from power; in his place was put Louis-Philippe,

who assumed the more modern title of "King of the The next stage in the story was the construction which defined

itself as the

French."^

of liberalism,

opposite of conservatism, on the basis

of what might be called a "consciousness of being modern"

(Minogue, 1963,

3).

Liberalism always situated

of the political arena, proclaiming

and of the truth of

selves liberals

sought

to

this

new worldview

overs of the past.

whom

To do

this,

center

Sure of them-

of modernity,

propagate their views and intrude

social institutions, thereby ridding the

logues,

itself in the

itself universalist.^

its

logic into

all

world of the "irrational" left-

they had to fight conservative ideo-

they saw as obsessed with fear of "free men,"^

men

liberated from the false idols of tradition. In other words, liberals

believed that progress, even though

achieved without some

human

it

effort,

was

inevitable, could not

be

without a political program.

Liberal ideology was thus the belief that, in order for history to follow

its

natural course,

it

was necessary

continual, intelligent reformism, in the universal friend,

which would

full

to

engage in conscious,

awareness that "time was

inevitably bring greater happi-

ness to ever greater numbers" (Schapiro, 1949, 13).

Socialism was the

last

of the three ideologies to be formulated.

Before 1848, one could hardly yet think of it as constituting a distinctive ideology.

after

1789

where

The

to call

as the heirs

reason was primarily that those

who began

themselves "socialists" saw themselves every-

and partisans of the French Revolution, which

did not really distinguish them from those

who had begun

to call

themselves "liberals."^ Even in Great Britain, where the French Revolution was widely denounced, and where "liberals" therefore laid claim to a different historical origin, the "radicals"

more or

less the future "sociahsts")

what more In fact,

seemed

to

(who were

be primarily some-

militant liberals.

what

as a poHtical

particularly distinguished socialism

program and therefore

as an ideology

viction that the achievement of progress

hand, without which

it

would be

a

from liberalism

needed

was the con-

a big

very slow process.

helping

The

heart

Three Ideologies or One? The Pseudohattle of Modernity

yy

of the socialist program, in short, consisted in accelerating the

why

word "revolution" appealed to them more than "reform," which seemed to imply merely patient, if conscientious, political activity, and was thought to incarnate course of history. That

is

the

mostly a wait-and-see attitude. In sum, three postures toward modernity and the "normalization" of change

had evolved: circumscribe the danger

as

much

as

possible; achieve the happiness of mankind as rationally as possible; or accelerate the drive for progress

by struggling hard against

the forces that were strongly resisting

1815-1848 began

to

Each posture, For

else.

liberals,

revival they

It

was

that the terms conservatism, liberalism,

be used

something

it.

it

in the period

and socialism

to designate these three postures. it

should be noted, located

For conservatives,

this

itself in

opposition to

was the French Revolution.

was conservatism (and the Ancien Regime whose

were thought

to seek).

alism that they were rejecting.

And

It is this

for socialists,

fundamentally

it

was

liber-

critical,

neg-

very definition of the ideologies that explains why many versions of each ideology. In terms of what they stood for^ many varied, even contradictory, propositions were put forward in each camp. The true unity of each ideological family ative tone in the

there are so

lay only in it

was

camps

what they were against. This

this negativity that

for

150 years or

meaning we

is

no minor

detail, since

succeeded in holding together the three so, at least until

1968, a date to whose

shall return.

THE "subject" of IDEOLOGY Since ideologies are in fact political programs for dealing with

modernity, each one needs a "subject," or a principal political actor. In the

terminology of the modern world,

referred to as the question of sovereignty.

asserted a crystal clear position ereignty of the absolute monarch,

on it

this

has been

The French Revolution

this matter: against the sov-

proclaimed the sovereignty of

the people.

This new language of the sovereignty of the people the great achievements of modernity.

is

one of

Even if for a century thereafter

there were lingering battles against this

new idol, the

"people," no

.

THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

78

one has since been able to dethrone it. But the victory was hollow. There may have been universal agreement that the people were sovereign, but from the outset there was no agreement on who the "people" were. Furthermore, on this delicate question, none of the three ideologies has had a clear position, which has not stopped them from refusing to admit the murkiness of their respective stances.

The

position that seemingly was least equivocal was that of the

Hberals. For them, the "people" was the

who

sum of all the "individuals"

are each the ultimate holder of political, economic,

tural rights.

The

of modernity. As

individual it is

on individualism,

is

and

cul-

par excellence the historic "subject"

impossible to review here the vast literature

confine myself to noting the three conundra

I

around which the debate has been waged. 1

All individuals are said to be equal.

declaration hterally? Obviously not,

if

But can one take such

one

is

a

speaking of the right

make autonomous decisions. No one would dream of authorizing a newborn to take autonomous decisions. But then how old to

does one have to be

to

have such a right?

times been multiple. But

if

we

The answers have

at all

agree to leave "children" (however

defined) out of the exercise of these rights on the grounds of the

immaturity of their judgment, vidual

is

someone

whom

it

follows that an

autonomous

indi-

others believe has the capacity to be

autonomous. And thereupon, once the possibility exists of someone else's making a judgment as to whether an individual has the capacity to exercise his/her rights, other categories

may

be designated as incapable: the senile aged, imbeciles, psychotics,

imprisoned criminals, members of dangerous so forth. This

list is

taking a position

not be ehgible, is

no

classes, the poor,

quite obviously not a fantasy.

I

am

and

not here

on whether each of these groups should or should

say, to vote,

but

self-evident dividing

hne

I

am

simply pointing out that there

who ought to from those who might

that separates those

be eligible for the exercise of their rights legitimately be denied this exercise. 2.

Even

if

we hmit

the discussion to those persons socially rec-

ognized as being "responsible" and therefore legitimately eligible for the full exercise of their rights,

it

may be

that

one individual

Three Ideologies or One? The Pseudohattle of Modernity

exercising his/her rights

What

are

we

to think

or that

it

may prevent another from doing the same.

about

this

possibiUty? That

consequence of social

the inevitable live,

yg

involves an assault

life

on the

with which we have to

rights of the

A

which we must prevent or penalize?

represents

it

second person

very knotty question that

has never received more than a partial and imperfect answer

both

at the level

of political practice and

at the level

of political

philosophy.

Even

3.

individuals

if all

who

rights (the "citizens") never

zens, they

might not

still

tive decision.

is

to

is

reconcile the differing

the great debate concerning political democracy.

credit the liberals at least with having debated ex-

tensively this question of

reignty

citi-

be in agreement about some collec-

Then what? How can we

positions? This

One can

all

are eligible for the full exercise of

impinge on the rights of other

who

vested. Conservatives

the individual

and

socialists

is

in

whom

sove-

ought in principle

have been debating this issue as well, since each proposed a

"subject" quite different from the individual, but their discussion

was

far less explicit. If the

then,

is it? It is

"subject"

is

not the individual, who,

a bit difficult to discern. See, for example,

Edmund

Burke in Reflections on the Revolution in France:

The

nature of man

is intricate;

the objects of society are of

the greatest possible complexity;

and therefore no simple

disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to

man's nature, or (cited in

If

to the quality of his affairs,

White, 1950, 28)

one didn't know that

tionaries,

this

was

a text attacking

one might have thought

absolute monarchs.

The

it

French revolu-

was intended

to

matter becomes a bit clearer

denounce if

we look

something Burke stated ten years

earlier in his "Speech on Economic Reform": "Individuals pass like shadows, but the Commonwealth is fixed and stable" (cited by Lukes, 1973, 3). Bonald's approach is quite different, because he insists on at

the crucial role of the Church. His view shares, however,

ment common

to all

one

the varieties of conservative ideology

ele-

— the

THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

80

importance they confer on social groups such as the family, corporations, the Church, the traditional "orders"

them the "subjects"

— which become for

that have the right to act politically. In other

words, conservatives gave priority to

all

those groups that might

be considered "traditional" (and thus incarnating continuity) but rejected identifying conservatism with any "totality" as a political actor. What has never in fact been clear in conservative thought is how one can decide which are the groups that incarnate conti-

nuity. After

there have always been arguments around con-

all,

tending royal lineages. ^^

For Bonald, the great error of Rousseau and Montesquieu had

been precisely society

what

to

"imagine

... a

pure

state

of nature antecedent to

" Quite the contrary, "the true nature of society ...

is

society, public society, is at present ..."

But this definition was

a trap for

its

(1988 [1802], 87). author, because it so legitimated

But precise main interest of conservative polemics. Rather, they were concerned about issuing warnings about the likely behavior of a majority that was created by adding up individual votes. Their historical subject was a far less active one than that of the liberals. In their eyes, good decisions were taken slowly and rarely, and such decisions had largely already the present that

logic has never

it

virtually forbade a "restoration."

been the

forte or

been taken. If conservatives refused to give priority to the individual as his-

torical subject in favor of small, so-called traditional groups, socialists

refused to give the individual priority in favor of that large

group which is the whole of the people. Analyzing socialist thought in

its

early period,

The

G. D. H. Cole remarked:

were those who, in opposition to the preon the claims of the individual, emphasised the social element in human relations and sought to bring the social question to the front in the great debate about the rights of man let loose on the world by the French "socialists"

vailing stress

Revolution and by the accompanying revolution in the eco-

nomic

field.

(1953, 2)

1

Three Ideologies or One? The Pseudohattle of Modernity

8l

know which individuals constitute the problem, and even more difficult to know which "groups" constitute the "people," the most difficult thing of all is to know how to define the general will of the whole people. How could one know what it is? And to begin with, whose views should we take into But

if it is

difBcult to

account— those of the

citizens, those of the

persons resident in

Why limit the people in this way? Why not take

the country?

into

account the views of all humanity? By what logic can a restriction

be justified?

What

the general will

we

is

the relationship in actual practice between

and the

find the source of

will of all? In this set of knotty questions

the difficulties encountered by socialist

all

movements once they came to power. In short, what the three ideologies offered us was not a response to the question,

Who

the appropriate historical subject? but

is

simply three starting points in the quest for

who

incarnates the

sovereignty of the people: the so-called free individual, for the liberals; the so-called traditional

entire

groups, for the conservatives; the

membership of "society,"

for the socialists.

THE IDEOLOGIES AND THE STATE

The people is

as "subject" has as its

primary "object" the

state. It

within the state that the people exercise their will, that they are

we have also How might we recon-

sovereign. Since the nineteenth century, however,

been told that the people form a "society." cile state

and

society,

which form the great

intellectual

antinomy

of modernity?

The most

astonishing thing

is

that

when we look

courses of the three ideologies in this regard, they

all

at the dis-

seem

to take

the side of society against the state. Their arguments are familiar.

For staunch liberals,

nomic faire

life

is

and

to

it

reduce

was its

crucial to keep the state out of eco-

role in general to a

minimum:

^''Laissez-

the nightwatchman doctrine of state" (Watson, 1973, 68).

For conservatives the terrifying aspect of the French Revolution

was not only its individualism but

The

state

also,

only becomes tyrannical

the intermediate groups

people— the

family, the

and particularly, its

when

who command

it

statism.

questions the role of

the primary loyalty of

Church, the corporation, ^i

And we

are

THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

82

familiar with the

the

famous characterization by Marx and Engels

in

Communist Manifesto:

The

bourgeoisie has at

last,

since the establishment of

modern industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. (1973 [1848], 69)

These negatives views of the

state

did not stop each of the three

ideologies from complaining that this state,

which was the object

of their critique, was out of their control and said to be in the

hands of their ideological opponents. In point of fact, each of the three ideologies turned out to be in great need of the services of the state in order to

an ideology

is first

promote its own program. Let us not forget

and foremost

a political strategy. Socialists

that

have

long been under attack for what has been said to be their incoherence; most of them, despite their antistatist rhetoric, have always striven in the short run to increase state activity.

always been a very minority viewpoint

among

Anarchism has

socialists.

But surely conservatives were more seriously

antistate? Haven't

they been regularly opposed to achieving reforms by state action?

Not at all, in reality. For we must take into account the question of the "decline of values" that conservatives see as one of the central con-

sequences of modernity.

To

struggle against the current decadence

of society, to restore society as state.

What

it

was before, they have needed the

has been said of one of the great English conservatives

of the 1840s, Sir Robert Peel— "he believed that a constitution issuing in a strong executive was essential to the anarchic age in

which he lived" (Gash, 1951, 52)

Note the way

in

— in fact appplies more generally.

which Halevy explains the evolution of the con-

servative position vis-a-vis the state during the

England

at the

"Tory reaction"

beginning of the nineteenth century:

In H)8S and in the years following, the King regarded

himself, and

was regarded by public opinion,

as the

in

Three Ideologies or One? The Pseudohattle of Modernity

Sovereign.

It

g^

be feared that he would make and the independence of his the powers of the State constituted

was always

to

his sovereignty absolute,

authority enjoyed by

all

a deliberate limitation of the prerogative, a system of con-

At the was the people who in America, in France, in England even, had asserted, or were about to assert, the claim to be supreme; it was therefore against the people that the three powers now maintained their independence. It was no longer the Whigs, it was the Tories who supported institutions whose significance had changed, while their form remained the same. And now the King presided over the league formed by the three powers for the defence of their autonomy against the new claimant stitutional guarantees against royal despotism.

opening of the nineteenth century

for sovereignty. (1949,

The

analysis

is

it

42-43)

limpid. Conservatives were always ready to

strengthen the state structure to the degree necessary to control

popular forces pushing for change. This was in

was stated by Lord Cecil not involve what

is

fact implicit in

what

in 1912: "As long as State action does

unjust or oppressive,

it

cannot be said that the

principles of Conservatism are hostile to it" (1912, 192).

— champions of individual freedom — remained hostile to the state? Not at

Well, at least the liberals

and of the

From

free

market

all!

the outset, liberals were caught in a fundamental contradic-

As defenders of the individual and his rights vis-a-vis the state, they were pushed in the direction of universal suffrage, the tion.

only guarantee of a democratic state. But thereupon, the state

became the principal agent of all reforms intended

to liberate the

individual from the social constraints inherited from the past. This in turn led the liberals to the idea of putting positive

law

at the

service of utilitarian objectives.

Once

again,

The

"utilitarian" philosophy

Halevy pointed

clearly to the consequences:

was not

perhaps fundamentally, a liberal system;

solely, it

was

nor even

at the

same

time a doctrine of authority which looked to the deliberate

THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

84

and in a sense scientific interference of Government to produce a harmony of interests. As his ideas developed, Bentham, who as a young man had been an advocate of "enlightened despotism," was converted to democracy. But he had reached that position by what we may call a long jump, which carried him at a bound over a number of political doctrines at which he might have been expected to halt —aristocracy, a mixed constitution, the balance of powers, and the doctrine that the statesman's aim should be to free the individual by weakening the authority of the Government and as far as possible dividing its powers. In Bentham's view, when the authority of the state had been reconciled by a universal or at least a very wide suffrage with the interests of the majority there was no further reason to hold it suspect, it became an unmixed blessing.

And

thereupon, the Conservatives

were now the upholders of the genuine Liberal tradition, the old system of aristocratic self-government with officials against a

new system

administered by salaried

unpaid

of bureaucratic despotism

officials.

(Halevy, 1950, 100, 99)

You may think that Benthamism was whose optimal expression is

in fact a deviation

from

be found in the

clas-

liberalism, sical

its

to

economists, the theoreticians of laissez-faire. Let us then

when

remember

that

Britain,

the leading classical economists of the time supported

all

the legislation, a

the

first

phenomenon

Factory Acts were passed in Great

spelled out (and approved) by none

other than Alfred Marshall (1921, 763-764). Since that time, the great bureaucratic state has never stopped growing,

sion has been sponsored by successive liberal

and

its

governments.

expan-

When

Hobhouse wrote

his book on liberalism as an answer to that of Lord Cecil on conservatism, he justified this expansion in this way: "The function of State coercion is to overcome individual

coercion, and, of course, coercion exercised by any association of individuals within the State" (1911, 146).

j

Three Ideologies or One? The Pseudohattle of Modernity

No doubt the justifications

85

each ideology invoked to explain

its

somewhat embarrassing statism were different. For socialists, the state implemented the general will. For conservatives, the state protected traditional rights against the general

will.

For

liberals,

the state created the conditions permitting individual rights to flourish.

But

in each case, the

bottom

line

was

that the state

was

being strengthened in relation to society, while the rhetoric called for

doing exactly the opposite.

HOW MANY

IDEOLOGIES?

muddle and intellectual confusion involved in the theme proper relation of state and society permit us to understand

All this

of the

why

it is

that

ideologies

how many

distinct

into existence in the nineteenth century.

Three?

we have never been

came

entirely sure

Two? Only one? I have just reviewed the traditional arguments that claim there were three. Let us

now

look

at

how one

can reduce

the three to two.

In the period from the French Revolution to the revolutions of

1848,

it

seems clear that

for

cleavage" was between those

contemporaries the "only clear

who

accepted progress as inevitable

and desirable, and thus "were globally favorable"

to the

French

Revolution, and, on the other hand, the Counter-Revolution,

which took it

as

its

stand against this disruption of values, considering

profoundly wrong (Agulhon, 1992,

struggle

was between

liberals

7).

Thus

the political

and conservatives, while those who

called themselves radicals or Jacobins or republicans or socialists

were regarded as simply a more militant variety of liberals. In The Village Cure^ Balzac has a

We

bishop exclaim:

are compelled to perform miracles in a manufactory

town where the

spirit

of sedition against religious and

monarchical doctrines has put forth deep roots, where the idea of close scrutiny, born of Protestantism and today

known

as Liberalism, with liberty to

adopt another name

tomorrow, extends to everything. (1898, 103)

Tudesq reminds us

that in

1840

a Legitimist

newspaper,

THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

86

rOrUanais^ denounced another newspaper, Le Journal de Loiret^ as a "liberal, Protestant, Saint-Simonian,

Lamennaisian paper"

(1964, 125-126). This was not completely wild since, as Simon notes:

"The Idea of Progress,

in fact, constituted the core

and

central inspiration of Saint-Simon's entire philosophy of thought"

(1956, 330;

cf.

Manning, 1976, 83-84).

Furthermore, this liberal-socialist alliance has roots in liberal and egalitarian thought of the eighteenth century, in the struggle against

monarchy

absolute to

(see Meyssonier, 1989, 137-156).

It

continued

be nourished in the nineteenth century by the ever increasing

which each saw as modern state. ^^ might have seemed that

the

might become a marriage. The conservatives did not

fail

interest of both ideologies in productivity,

the

basic requirement for a social policy in the

With alliance to

the rise of utilitarianism,

argue

it

this:

When

the Tories wished to discredit Utilitarianism, they

denounced

it

as an unpatriotic philosophy, inspired

by

Were not

the

foreign ideas, and especially by French ideas. political principles of the

Benthamites the democratic

Did they not derive their ethics and their jurisprudence from Helvetius and Beccaria, their psychology from Condillac, their philosophy of history and their political economy from Condorcet and Jean-Baptiste Say? Were they not irreligious Voltairians? Had not Bentham composed in French and published at Paris his

principles of the Jacobins?

Traites de Legislation? But the Utilitarians could reply with

truth that

all

tation they

these so-called French ideas, of whose impor-

were accused, were in

reality English ideas

which had found a temporary home abroad. (1949, 583)

Once

again, the conservative view

was not

incorrect.

Brebner

speaks with sympathy of the "collectivist" side of Bentham, concluding,

"What were the Fabians but latter-day Benthamites?" And

he adds that John Stuart Mill was already in 1830 "what might be called a liberal socialist" (1948, 66).

On

the other hand, after

1830

a clear distinction

begins to

Three Ideologies or One? The Pseudobattle of Modernity

emerge between

liberals

quite deep. At the onciliation

after

1848,

becomes

it

same time, 1848 marks the beginning of a

consequence of 1830 was

by allowing the

political

Belgium (but even

especially

and

socialists,

between Hberals and conservatives.

that the great sible,

and

gy

to

Hobsbawm

rec-

thinks

make mass pohtics pos-

triumph in France, England, and

partially in Switzerland, Spain,

Portugal) of a "moderate" liberalism,

which consequently

and

"split

moderates from radicals" (1962, 117). Cantimori, analyzing the issue from an Italian perspective, thinks that the question of a

divorce was open until 1848. Until then, he notes, "the liberal

movement

.

.

.

had rejected no path: neither

nor reformist pohtical action" (1948, 288). that a divorce

What

is

between these two

crucial to note

referring to Saint-Simon.

tactics

socialist

nize itself around Marxist ideas.

poverty, susceptible to repair

The

It

was only

after

1848

was consummated. 1848, socialists stopped

is that, after

The

a call for insurrection

movement began

plaint

to orga-

was no longer merely

by reform, but the dehumanization

caused by capitalism, whose solution required overturning

it

completely (see Kolakowski, 1978, 222).

At

this

utility

very time, conservatives began to be conscious of the

of reformism for conservative objectives. Sir Robert Peel,

immediately following the Reform Act of 1832, issued an elec-

Tamworth Manifesto, which became celebrated doctrinal statement. It was considered by contemporaries

toral manifesto, the

as a as

"almost revolutionary" not merely because the manifesto

announced the acceptance of the Reform Act

as "a final

and

irrev-

ocable settlement of a great constitutional question" but because this position

was announced

to the

people rather than

ment, which caused a great "sensation"

at the

to Parlia-

time (Halevy, 1950,

178).i3

In the process, conservatives noted their convergence with lib-

on the importance of protecting property, even though what interested them about property was primarily the fact that it reperals

resented continuity and thus served as the foundation for family life,

the Church,

and other

26).

But beyond

this

social solidarities (see Nisbet, 1966,

philosophical convergence, there was the

concrete menace of real revolution, a fear they shared, as Lord

THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

88

Cecil noted: "For

it is

an indispensable part of the effective

tance to Jacobinism that there should be moderate reform

resis-

on con-

servative lines" (1912, 64). Finally,

we should not

entirely neglect the third possible reduc-

tion of three to two: conservatives

and

opposition to liberals, even

seems the

if this

socialists joining

hands

in

least likely theoreti-

The "conservative" character of Saint-Simonian socialism, its upon (see Manuel, 1956, 320; Iggers, 1958, 99). The two camps could come cally.

roots in Bonaldian ideas, has often been remarked

together around their anti-individualist reflex. Equally, a liberal like

von Hayek denounced the tive Carlyle's

"socialist" character of the conserva-

thought. This time,

servative thought that

was

it

was the "social" side of con-

in question.

Lord Cecil did not

in fact

hesitate to declare this affinity openly:

It is

often

assumed

directly opposed.

that

But

Conservatism and Socialism are

this is

not completely true.

Modern

Conservatism inherits the traditions of Toryism which are favourable to the activities and the authority of the State.

Indeed Mr. Herbert Spencer attacked Socialism as being in fact the revival of Toryism

.

.

."

(1912, 169)

The consequence of libercJ-socialist alliances was the emergence of a sort of socialist liberalism. The consequence of liberalconservative alliances was a sort of conservative liberalism. In

we ended up with two varieties of liberalism. The conservative-socialist alliances, more improbable, were originally merely passing tactics. But one might wonder whether one might not think short,

of the various "totalitarianisms" of the twentieth century as a more lasting

form of this

alliance, in the sense that they instituted a

form

of traditionalism that was both populist and social. If so, these totalitarianisms

were yet another way

in

which

liberalism remained

center stage, as the antithesis of a Manichean drama. Behind this

facade of intense opposition to Hberalism, one finds as a core

component of the demands of all

these regimes the

same

faith in

progress via productivity that has been the gospel of the liberals. In this

way we might conclude

that even socialist conservatism

Three Ideologies or One? The Pseudobattle of Modernity

gg

(or conservative socialism) was, in a way, a variant of liberalism, its

diabolical form. In

which

case,

would

it

not be correct to

conclude that since 1789 there has been only one true ideology,

which has displayed

liberalism,

its

colors in three major versions?

Of course such a statement has to be spelled out in historical terms.

The period 1789-1848

stands out as a great ideological

struggle between a conservatism that failed in the

end

to achieve a

finished form and a liberalism in search of cultural hegemony.

The

period 1848-1914 (or 1917) stands out as a period in which

liberalism

dominated the scene without serious opposition, while

Marxism was

trying to constitute a socialist ideology as an inde-

pendent pole, but not being

entirely able to succeed.

One might

then argue (and this assertion would be the most controversial) that the period

1917-1968

(or 1989) represented the apotheosis of

Leninism was making the claim that it was an ideology violently opposed to liberalism, it was actually being one of its avatars. ^^ liberalism at the world level. In this view, although

BEYOND IDEOLOGIES? Is

it

now

beyond

go beyond ideologies, that is, to go dominant liberal ideology? The question has been put, and repeatedly, since the world revolution of 1968. at last possible to

the

explicitly

For what were the revolutionaries of 1968 attacking

ahsm as an ideology, as

that ideology

as the ideology of the capitalist

Many

if

not liber-

among the three which served

world-economy?

of those engaged in the confrontations in 1968 no doubt

clothed their

demands

in a

Maoist discourse, or that of some

other variant of Marxism. But that did not stop them from putting the Marxists into the

Marxism and

same Hberal pot, rejecting both

the great

Communist

official

Soviet

parties of the industrialized

world. And when, in the period after 1968, the most "conservative"

elements sought to formulate a response to the revolutionaries of

1968, they gave themselves the name of "neoliberals." Recently, Publisher's Weekly, reviewing a

summarized

and

no longer mutually exclusive positions" {New York Review ofBooks^ March 7, 1991,

'liberalism' political

book by Kolakowski,

his thoughts in the following way: "'Conservatism,'

'socialism' are

THE CONSTRUCTION AND TRIUMPH OF LIBERAL IDEOLOGY

90

20: advertisement). But if

there ever

exclusive.

the

was

What

a is

if

our analysis

correct,

is

we may wonder

moment when these ideologies were mutually new is not that confusion reigns concerning

meaning and

validity of liberalism, the great

hegemonic

ideology of the capitalist world-economy: This has always been the case.

What

is

new

is

that for the first time in

its

nant ideology since 1848, liberalism, which

history as a domi-

is at

heart nothing

but modernity, has been once again fundamentally questioned.

What we should conclude from deal with here.

I

this will

go beyond what we can

believe, however, that liberalism as an effective

political project has

had

its

day,

and

that

it is

in the process of col-

lapsing under the impact of the structural crisis of the capitalist

world-economy.

This may not be the end of all ideology. But now that longer so clear that political change therefore normal, one

no longer needs

with the consequences of such a of transition, which

be described as

outcome

is

a

may go on

it is

no

necessary, inevitable, and

is

to

have an ideology to deal

belief.

We

are entering a period

some

fifty

years,

for

and which can

major "bifurcation" (vide Prigogine) whose

uncertain.

We

cannot predict the worldview(s) of the

system(s) that will emerge from the ruins of our present one.

cannot predict what ideologies will be born or

how many

We

there

will be, if any.

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